HD DVD's? You bet!

BillyBoy wrote on 1/6/2005, 7:37 PM
How would you like DVD's playing off your computer that have six times the resolution of "regular" DVD's?

I'll get to that in a minute. Read this first.

Just read a interesting article in Sound and Vision magazine and saw a Microsoft add in the same issue. According to David Ranaka in the Tech Talk column he compares High Definition Native resolutions with the DVD standard. According to him a 16:9 DVD has a pixel size of 720x405.

While HD TV without any tricks of line doubling or other things to get all the benefit a HD signal can provide need 1280x720 (for 720 progressive) and 1920x1080 (for 1080 interlaced. While most HD TV's can handle the lower, you may need to take out a second mortage to get a large screen HD TV that can use all the 1080 signal.

Anyhow...

Back to ultra high definition DVD's. In the same magazine There is a full page add from Microsoft.

If you have a true HD tv and said monitor/tv has a DVI or D1 input
and you run Windows XP and you install Windows Media 9, then so far there are about a dozen or so titles that are available in super HD resolution. One example is Ternimator 2.

Q1 Anybody try any of these?

Q2 Anybody know if you make make you own (doubt it) HD DVD's yet?

Comments

epirb wrote on 1/6/2005, 8:13 PM
saw T2 extreme HD on a set up I did with a 3.0ghz media pc and outputed to a high def mitisubshi RPTV via a VGA to RGBHV . Looked awesome.
I have the disc at home but it brings my meger 1.8ghz processor to its little girly knees when I attempted to play it . : (
AudioIvan wrote on 1/6/2005, 9:21 PM
HD DVD looks excellent, if you have Nero Ultra you can try to encode some of your videos(via AVS script).
AVC is the codec of the future, looks unreal.
Here's little fine print for ya
"Next Generation Consumer Products Embrace Advanced Codecs and High Definition

The increasing pervasiveness of digital media coupled with a fundamental need for entertainment alternatives are paving the way for explosive growth in new types of consumer products and services. Telcos around the world are preparing to launch premium video services, DVD is moving to high definition, homes are using wireless networks to access media anywhere, and portable players are just about to experience video on-the-go. The common denominator: advanced compression technologies and high performance media processors turning these concepts into commercial realities.

Driving this movement is a transition from the digital media monopoly, held by MPEG-2 for the past 10 years, yielding to a duopoly shared by two new video codecs that provide over twice the compression efficiency: VC-1, a SMPTE specification based on Microsoft's Windows Media Video 9 (WMV9); and H.264, a shared specification from ITU and MPEG associations, also known as AVC, and MPEG-4 part 10. Moving forward, VC-1 and H.264 appear destined to equally share the role as the next generation digital media standard.
The IPTV industry, which is just now showing signs of impending growth on a worldwide basis, is rapidly moving toward advanced set-top boxes that feature both WMV9 and H.264. For telco operators, these advanced codec solutions enable the delivery of high quality video services, such as live broadcasts and video-on-demand (VOD) over bandwidth limited broadband networks. To upscale competition, certain North American and Asian services are looking to use the added compression to feature high-definition channels. By deploying set-top boxes that incorporate all codecs, operators ensure that their investment in customer premise equipment can support future content streams in any major format.

For future DVD players, the movement toward high-definition content using WMV9 and H.264 with continued support for MPEG-2 is a near certainty as both HD-DVD and Blu-ray camps have selected these new codec standards. For some time, advanced DVD players featuring MPEG-4 content, high-definition output, and network connectivity have been popular with entertainment enthusiasts. However, the enormous momentum behind the emergence of HD-DVD and Blu-ray players will usher this level of performance into the mainstream and bring with it a tidal wave of content that requires multi-format support. Meanwhile, two fast-moving initiatives for high definition playback based on red-laser technology and the WMV9 codec are expanding current demand: Windows Media DVD players are now being purchased to take advantage of new published and online content; and Taiwan-driven FVD format players (forward versatile disc) are targeting Asian originated movie content for the huge domestic market in China, Taiwan and elsewhere.

Moving into the future, many other digital media products are adopting one or all of these new video codecs. Digital media receivers (DMRs) provide seamless flow of video content to TV sets throughout the home, and offer access to the growing collections of PC-based, digital photos, music and video, much of which is now based on WMV9 and WMA. Likewise, HDTV televisions are moving to support the widening range of broadcast standards, including the migration of both DVB, ARIB and ATSC to high-definition, H.264 content. Moving down the road, new portable media players sporting video playback are adding WMV9 compression to more than double their video storage capacity, as well as tap into the growing list of downloadable content. "

AudioIvan
farss wrote on 1/6/2005, 10:12 PM
BB et al,
see my post below. There's heaps of info about this on DMN.
Sonic have an app to handle the authoring but as I said you could probably do it youself without too much effort using any web authoring tool.
Bob.
Spot|DSE wrote on 1/6/2005, 10:45 PM
Nero today, announced their relationship with Apex and their 264 tools.
There are apparently other announcements coming. Nero's booth is slamming with people who are excited about the format. If you are at the show, stop by and check out their HD presentation, all accomplished using Vegas. Audio, video, 3D, motion, masking, the whole thing. It's showing on 52" plasmas, using their H.264 codec. It's only in stereo, as they didn't plan their booth in 5.1
Fleshpainter wrote on 1/7/2005, 2:07 AM
I'm waiting for the 3-D multi-sensory option to come out... with the headpiece thing that transfers the sensations directly to the brain.
...I've got some ideas I'm working on.
RBartlett wrote on 1/7/2005, 3:44 AM
The T2 and IMAX HD discs are WMV9 and are essentially DVD-ROM.

Polaroid Electronics (Petters Group) using Equator chipsets and a few other pundits have claimed playback capability of HD WMV9 DVD-ROM on a set top player. Also I believe an XBOX with a CPU upgrade hack and XBox Media Center can also play HD WMV9 DVD-ROM with the right interconnect to the TV. The original XBOX CPU and RAM is too little for HD WMV9 with these EULA breaking hacks that upset Microsoft by virtue of the fact that they and the original manufacturers subsidise the electronics on the basis of selling games and not playing hidef Terminator 2!

I believe Sonic Solutions announced the ability to make HD WMV9 DVD-ROM circa 2Q2004 as an optional plug to their Scenarist range of suites. Google for the press release.

However I suspect you could make an equivalent HD WMV9 DVD-ROM without conforming to the Hollywood mode of publishing (or perhaps reverse engineer if you are allowed in your part of the world).

DVDLab also allows MP@HL MPEG-2 DVD-ROM versions of a conceptual MPEG-2 HD DVD-Video on DVDR format. You need more than a 1x DVD-ROM speed, but who has anything that old now?

HD WMV9 DVD-ROM and MPEG-2 MP@HL DVD-ROM layed out like DVD-Video are really just for computer playback for the time being. Although if you deliverate over the salient points, a second hand PC will be HD MPEG-2 and HD WMV9 capable within a few months. A second hand PC can cost less than a new DVD set top player. Keep it infection free and you've got a good plan for the future of economic integration of your web browsing, email, games and entertainment platform.. Playback for film length MP@HL MPEG-2 will be troublesome until BD-ROM as DVD-ROM, even at 8.5GB on DL-DVDR is too hard. WMV9 and H.264 variants of MPEG-4 need set top player appeal to make it beyond the dual format "trials" that hollywood have been dabbling with.

Just need those 23" widescreen 1920x1200 LCD monitors to drop through the floor with UXGA-HDB15, HD 1080i/p YCrCb and DVI-D/HDMI ports.