Looking around the Microsoft Theatre at IBC it seems that DVDs using WM9 are the way to go. There's a couple of set top boxes that will play it and quite a few more coming early next year.

I was pretty impressed watching high def video played out at 1080p onto a big plasma screen with a source bit rate of 6 MBits/sec.

This means you can fit around 90 mins of HD onto an exisiting DVD +/- R, of course a dual layer one means you can fit a lot more.

It left me wondering though just what future there is for Sony's blue ray DVD format when from a consummers point of view the same result can be achieved using existing DVD plant and media with just smarter encoding and beefier silicon.

Does dual layer disc mean we need to buy a new DVD-R burner? I would assume so, but not sure...

nevermind, read it and answered my own question; I'm looking forward to this!

I hope -R release duals also.

For DVD-R

http://www.pioneer.co.jp/press/release125.html

I have to assume they are talking about a new generation of DVD recorders rather than firmware updates, correct? Out with the old & in with the new?

I believe I mentioned it once before on this forum. Maybe not. I have an article pinned to my bulletin board: In any case, here goes:

The ORIGINAL specs for DVD included multiple sides AND multiple layers, for a TOTAL of about 18Gig of data per disc. The situation follows EXACTLY the development of floppy drives.

Remember, 8" single sided floppies? Then, the dual with twice the data, requiring a new machine?

Then, the 5 1/4" drive came out . It was single sided. Later, came the double sided drives. Then, came the double density drives. Then, came the 3.5" drives, which were, of course, single sided. Then, double sided, then high density. Each "improvement" required a new drive. Simple economics, for the manufacturers. Sure, the users were asking for more storage space, but the main incentive to manufacture the "improved" drives was decreasing profit on each of the old drives as the technology matured at each stage.

There you have it in a nutshell. You can figure what will happen. There are a FEW drives that can use dual sided DVDs, if you can find them. But not many, because they want to go to double, then quad density and allow the use of pretty labels on the discs. That means we can expect a LOT of activity soon to drive the dual layer, quad layer concept.. Eventually. I have aticles discussing how little profit the manufacturers are making on those $25 CD drives, and under $100 DVD drives.

Another of my articles, quite some years back, now, mentioned that IBM had perfected the ability to read and write data to 10 (YEA, TEN) layers on EACH SIDE of a disc, and that that technology was now (then) available for license.

The same techniques can be used with Blu-Ray.. Sony says that they can start commercially with 29Gig per disc. But, in other articles I have clipped, they are already talking of dual density, over 48Gigs. Nobody has mentioned multi-layers for Blu-Ray, yet. But it is quite likely that it is possible, or even required in the specs. Eventually.

Oddly, Sony is having development problems with Blu-Ray because so many of their blue light laser diodes die a sudden and VERY early death. That is what has kept the price at or near $3,000.00US for the drives, so far.

Did you know that the exact same problem occurred with both CDs and DVDs in their early stages of development? But, the technical problems are not quite so great, apparently. It only took 20 years or so for the CD to make it from the original test drive in a lab to the market as a unit that was good enough for computer data storage

Remember, computer data, not music, or movies. Computer data is MUCH more sensitive to errors, and hence much more difficult to stamp out, or read or write, for that matter.

Even if the DVD is stepped up to 9GB soon, it will still be limited. To around 18GB, to be exact. And, the advent of true HD camcorders and people like us editing HD flicks are going to be the first to abandon DVD for Blu-Ray. Think of it. HD at 1920 x 1080 requires about 76GB of storage per hour. Current DV only takes 12.9 GB or so. We have to water it down to 4.9 GB per hour for DVD. But, when everyone has a true 1920 x 1080 viewing capability in a few years, think of how LAME that 4.9, or even 9.8GB DVD is going to seem when placed up against true HD.

The only sad part of the story of the migration to true 1920 x 1080 is that the first of the HD camcorders on the market, and/or soon to be on the market, are going to only be 1440 x 1080. Remember those single, then dual sided floppies.?The ones that a few years later became double or high density? Each time it required a completly new drive.

Well, after a few years of DV and DVDs, the profit outlook is falling, slowly. It will pick up soon, especially when HD camcorders come on the market. And, in a few years, say about 10, the same thing will happen, and they will introduce a new dual sided flopppy, er, higher definition camcorder than 1440 x 1080. Maybe even 1920 x 1080, like it says in the specs.

Funny thing about those specs. They are always right there for everyone to see. But no one ever things that the future is so near.

Such is the planned (and published) evolution of the CD, the DVD, and (soon?) the Blu-Ray discs. Enjoy.

Hmm! Wonder what will come AFTER Blu-Ray?

wcoxe1,
a few error crept in there!

Yes computers are intolerant of data errors, thats why CD-R uses far more error correction that CD-A. No big drama waiting a few milliseconds while an error is corrected. That would be intolerable with audio so CD-A uses less error correction buts it's designed so that when an uncorrectable error does happen you don't get a nasty glitch in the sound.

It's one thing to get something to work in a lab, quite another to ge it to work on a production line and at a price point the consummer will pay. I'll admit we all want the latest gee whiz gadget even when it delivers no real improvement in out life ans the marketing gurus play that for all its worth. I'm sure there is some degree of holding back on the latest technology but the market is pretty merciless so anyone that can get to market first is going to do it.

having gotten that out of the way I can see no real need for Blu Ray. Red laser DVDs, even single layer single ones have plenty of life left in them. Your assumption about how much data they need to hold assumes we stick with mpeg-2 encoding. MPEG themselves have declared it dead. The silicon exists now to decode mpeg-4 at 1080p from a 6Mbit stream in real time. Thats about 90 mins on an existing DVD.

You can burn it on your existing DVD burner, press it in existing plant and soon buy a range of players to play it. You'll wait a long time encoding it and need beefy silicon to decode it but that's something thats always going down in price and up in performance and is very cheap to upgrade to.

Seems kinda silly when the 27GB blue rays will probably come out around the same time as these DVD-R's will.

Not if 90% of the DVD players out there play dual layer DVDs and no Blu-Rays.

Things are moving faster then we think....as shown below,

TDK demonstrates four-layer recording
Wednesday, 8 October 2003

TDK demonstrates a purple-blue laser diode in CEATEC Japan, promising recording capacities that reach the 100GB on a single disk.
The laser uses the same wavelength as a blue laser technology, and records on specially developed disks in 4 layers! As a result, a maximum capacity of 100GB can be achieved. The maximum recording speed reaches the 144 Mbps.

Scource...
http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.asp?RelatedID=4223