“More than a dozen Hollywood studios announced movie offerings in Japan Tuesday for players of next-generation Blu-ray Disc video,” Hiroko Tabuchi reports for The Associated Press.
“The film companies, including Walt Disney Co., Sony Pictures Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox, said at a press conference in Tokyo that some 75 Blu-ray movies will go on sale starting later this year,” Tabuchi reports.
Tabuchi reports, “Among the works are Sony Pictures’ ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and Walt Disney’s ‘Chicken Little,’ company officials told reporters at a Tokyo hotel. Blu-ray DVDs are already available in the United States, though the number of titles wasn’t immediately known.
“The Blu-ray format is competing against another new format called HD DVD. Blu-ray is backed by Sony Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which makes Panasonic brand products, Sharp Corp., Hitachi and Pioneer Corp., among the Japanese companies, as well as by Samsung Electronics Co., Apple Computer Inc. and Dell Inc.,” Tabuchi reports.
Tabuchi reports, “HD DVD has the support of Japanese electronics makers Toshiba Corp. and NEC Corp., as well as Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced on March 10, 2005 that Apple was “pleased to join the Blu-ray Disc Association board as part of our efforts to drive consumer adoption of HD.”
According to The Blu-ray Disc Association’s website, HD DVD’s pre-recorded capacities are 15 GB for a single layer disc, or 30 GB for a double layer disc. Blu-ray Disc provides 67% more capacity per layer at 25 GB for a single layer and 50GB for a double layer disc. It’s par for the course that Apple backs the superior format while Microsoft supports the inferior one.
It does, however, bear noting that Apple is playing both sides of the fence in a wait and see mode. According to a press release from April 17, 2005, “Apple is committed to both emerging high definition DVD standards—Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD. Apple is an active member of the DVD Forum which developed the HD DVD standard, and last month joined the Board of Directors of the Blu-ray Disc Association.”
Related articles:
Japanese Mac users get first Mac OS X-friendly Blu-ray burner – August 02, 2006
Roxio Toast 7 for Apple Mac adds Blu-ray support – July 25, 2006
Apple and Microsoft showdown over Blu-ray vs. HD DVD? – July 14, 2006
Analysts: Blu-ray coming to Apple Macs sooner than later – July 14, 2006
Ricoh creates ‘universal’ optical disk lens; reads and writes Blu-ray, HD DVD, DVD, and CD – July 10, 2006
Blu-ray Disc blank media hits U.S. shelves – May 22, 2006
Blu-ray Disk Associaton: we’ll win DVD format war over HD-DVD – May 12, 2006
RUMOR: Apple asks studios to include iPod video content on Blu-ray discs – April 25, 2006
Sony postpones PlayStation 3 release until November due to Blu-ray delay – March 15, 2006
Broadcom announces decoder chip that plays both Blu-ray and HD DVD – January 03, 2006
Forrester Research: Apple-backed Blu-ray will win over Microsoft-backed HD DVD – October 20, 2005
BusinessWeek: ‘it looks as if HD DVD’s days are numbered’ – October 07, 2005
China to develop own as-yet-unnamed DVD format; Blu-ray vs. HD DVD vs ? – October 07, 2005
Paramount’s decision gives Blu-ray slight lead over HD DVD in next gen DVD format war – October 04, 2005
Record set straight on Blu-ray Disc Association’s superior high definition format – September 29, 2005
Microsoft backs cheaper, less sophisticated, lower capacity HD DVD over Apple-backed Blu-ray format – September 27, 2005
Twentieth Century Fox joins Apple, Dell, HP, others to support Blu-ray Disc format – July 29, 2005
Poll shows Apple-backed Blu-ray preferred by consumers over HD DVD for next-gen DVD standard – July 14, 2005
Microsoft allies with Toshiba on HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray Disc backers Apple and Sony – June 27, 2005
Apple joins Blu-ray Disc Association Board of Directors – March 10, 2005
Somehow I feel MDN’s tune would be different if Apple had backed HD-DVD.
Too bad no one is using Apple’s H.264 codec.
HD-DVD uses Microsoft’s VC-1.
Blu-ray uses MPEG-2.
Apple will back whoever comes out of this a winner. Hopefully (and most likely) to be Blu-Ray though.
mmmmmm….50 Gigs…..
om April 17, 2005, “Apple is committed to both emerging high definition DVD standards—Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD. Apple is an active member of the DVD Forum which developed the HD DVD standard, and last month joined the Board of Directors of the Blu-ray Disc Association.”
That tells me that while one may be better than the other, both are good enough to move forward with.
gentlemen start your burning
Oh well…: “Too bad no one is using Apple’s H.264 codec.
HD-DVD uses Microsoft’s VC-1.
Blu-ray uses MPEG-2.”
You may want to double-check your facts there buddy. First of all, H.264 isn’t “Apple’s” codec. Second, both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray support H.264 in addition to VC1 and MPEG2.
Here are some links so you can enlighten yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD-DVD
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray
I bought some of that amazing Blu-Ray Ointment one time. It took care of my ringworm, jock itch, tether, psoriasis, athlete’s foot, and that was just my groin area!
The ONLY two advantages that HD-DVD has over Blu-Ray is the name (has DVD in it – don’t knock it, familiarity, if in name alone, is a very powerful thing for some people) and the fact that Mafia$oft is behind HD-DVD. They aren’t afraid to use strong-arm tactics to ram things down people’s throats. Speaking of which, I hope Heather Brooks’ movies come out on Blu-Ray sometime soon.
I don’t care about Blu-Ray and won’t until the day I can afford an HDTV. Even then, I won’t pay a large premium over a standard DVD. I’m just not that much of an videophile. I’m spoiled rotten by being able to pick up new releases at Best Buy for under 20 bucks.
Cubert
I think HD-DVD are also backward compatible. At one time, that I know of, Blu-Ray weren’t
Too bad no one is using Apple’s H.264 codec.
Uh, both HD-DVD and BD-DVD do
H.264 which is mandatory for HD DVD and Blu-ray
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060824-7590.html
Yea, what Andy said.
The problem is HD-DVD is just “good enough” to show a 2 1/2 hour HD move on a dual layer HD-DVD disk, much like todays DVD’s. It also doesn’t require brand new manufacturing equipment, a alteration of existing DVD fabs is enough and the fab can switch back to regular DVD’s again.
With BlueRay the storage capacity is greater, which is why a lot of computer makers support it (100 GB on a dual sided dula layer BD-DVD is quite attractive) and eventually as Cell processors make their way into HDTV’s the higher capacity BD-DVD’s will be able to have moe interactive content. The drawback is BD-DVD’s require brand new manufactoring equipment.
Apple is in a pickle because they rapidly becoming a PC vendor and have to run Vista to sell more Mac hardware, thus they have to keep a foot in the HD-DVD camp and the BlueRay camp.
Apple’s solution is to provide two optical drive bays in their new Mac Pro’s so one can order what they want, a BlueRay and/or a HD-DVD drive.
Apple will eventually support both in software. They have to in order to take care of their Final Cut Studio users. If you can’t do it with FC Studio, you will go to Adobe or Avid. Apple does not want this.
BlueRay discs and players are more expensive to manufacture.
HD DVD, although inferior in many ways, are apparently cheaper to manufacture as well. I think i read somewhere that the HD DVD players are also compatible with standard DVDs.
It doesn’t surprise me that Microsoft would favor the less expensive technology, as they are all about serving the largest mass audience. (its just good business)
BlueRay will win out only if companies and consumers can see the long view.
MDN Magic Word “months” – Its been months since I posted here.
why do I need a 15 to 30 gig disk for a movie?
Unless it’s some thing by Peter Jackson, of course.
MDN magic word “likely” as in “I’m not likely to run out and by a blue-ray player anytime soon”
The new Sony 17″ Viao AR laptop, (sweet machine, too bad it runs Windows), had BlueRay built in already. The MacBook Pro is lagging behind!
blu-ray is too proprietary.
Get this… the newest BD Computer drives won’t play blu-ray movies… because they haven’t worked out the protection scheme.
“It doesn’t surprise me that Microsoft would favor the less expensive technology, as they are all about serving the largest mass audience.”
Just like McDonalds.
HHHUUUMMMMMM…
So Toshiba Corp & M$ both support this format.
I wonder if Toshiba Corp wasn’t making that Zune player, they’d be supporting Blue Ray HD?
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/10681/
Yes H.264 is supported on both platforms, but unfortunately I believe, it is not being used for todays batch of movies.
Its very early in the game. Recent test reports of Blu-Ray suggest an issue with inconsistent image quality across a range of discs ostensibly related to non defeatable video noise reduction processing in an initial Samsung player. A revised player with the noise reduction circuit switched off was shipped and tested but image quality still fell below that available in HD DVD. Meanwhile, players for both formats exhibit very slow boot up and response times relative to existing DVD players. Early adopters can be burned on multiple fronts including adopting the “Beta” version.
why do I need a 15 to 30 gig disk for a movie?
Because the resolution of the HD content is greater than what regular DVD’s can hold.
Are you the short bus driver Colorado City Arizona?
As mentioned in the article HD DVD is 15 GB single layer and 30 GB dual layer while Blu-ray is 25 GB single layer and 50 GB dual layer. Studios are shipping HD DVD currently on both 15 GB disks and 30 GB disks. Almost all pre recorded media (mostly movies) has been with the dual layer, 30 GB, disks. While Blu-ray does support 50 GB disks no 50 GB pre recorded disks are shipping at this time. Rumors abound that by November 50 GB disks will shipping from the major studios. But that’s just rumor.
Most of the HD DVD disks shipped so far use VC-1 compression. All Blu-ray disks shipped so far use MPEG-2.
The combination of only shipping 25 GB drives so far and only using MPEG-2 on Blu-ray disks so far has hurt the quality of many of the movies shipped to date by the studios. Many of these disks have been rated very poorly by both reviewers and general bleeding edge adopters.
The standards for both include MPEG-2, VC-1 and MPEG-4 Part 10 (aka AVC and H.264).
Most two hour movies (at 1080p/24) compress down to about 15-20 GB using VC-1. You can probably expect similar file sizes for H.264. Given that, the 4+ hour epics (think of movies like The Ten Commandments, Cleopatra, or even the LOTR trilogy) will very likely NOT fit onto a single dual HD DVD disk (30 GB) unless they push the compression further — which will hurt image quality on playback.
On the other hand, when Blu-ray gets its act together and starts shipping 50 GB disks and uses either VC-1 or H.264 (rumored to be in the November/December time frame) you should be able to get virtually all movies onto a single disk (except something like the Russian version of War & Peace [at 7+ hours!]).
For personal computers, I do not know of a currently shipping HD DVD drive. They are supposedly shipping “soon”, but may not be available before October/November. Conversely there are a couple Blu-ray drives currently shipping — both internal and external models.
I think it’s a shame that Apple are in the BluRay camp.
BluRay is more anti-consumer than HD DVD: it has nastier DRM; and Region Encoding where HD DVD has none.
Current BluRay discs have lower picture quality than equivalent HD DVD ones: they are single layer 25GB disc and use MPEG-2, whereas HD DVDs are double layer 30GB discs and use VC-1 which is like having twice the MPEG-2 storage (in laymans terms).
Sony have said when they get round to double layer BluRay movies of 50GB they are going to use the extra 25GB for “extras” rather than picture / audio quality.
It’s unknown when Sony will switch to H.264 encoding for the discs (which they use in other formats like PSP) but they need to because HD DVD movies look much nicer at the moment.
The ONLY benefit BluRay has is that ultimately it will have higher storage capability, but in return for nastier DRM and lower picture quality is that what people want?
BiggerIsBetter: “BlueRay discs and players are more expensive to manufacture.
“HD DVD, although inferior in many ways, are apparently cheaper to manufacture as well. I think i read somewhere that the HD DVD players are also compatible with standard DVDs.”
Blu-ray players are currently selling for about double what HD DVD players are. However, the disks (with the movies on them) are priced about the same, some higher some lower.
While there are many reports which claim that Blu-ray disks are more expensive to make, the cost of manufacturing the disks is a very small fraction of what goes into the selling price. This is why the selling price of current pre-recorded disks (movies) is about the same across both HD DVD and Blu-ray.
Also all Blu-ray Disk players shipping and announced so far read DVDs too — and many even play CDs.
One constraint on the HD DVD side is the only manufacturer committed to making HD DVD drives is Toshiba. RCA was selling re-badged Toshiba players, but there are rumors rampant in the last couple of days that RCA has stopped shipping those leaving ONLY Toshiba. Conversely there are over a half dozen manufacturers committed to making Blu-ray players.
Dix99, Toshiba developed the HD-DVD format, kinda like Sony developed Blu-Ray, so there’s no conspiracy in Toshiba supporting HDDVD due to Zune.