HD VMD is well and good, BUT....
the HD VMD codec is a proprietary commercial codec NOT available to the likes of you 'n me. Since I can't encode to it, much less burn it on a DVD, it's of absolutely no use to me.

I haven't tried burning dual-layer; there are only a few sources for the discs, the price is not attractive, and the compatibility reports I've heard are not encouraging. Has anyone suggested that recordable 6-layer media will be available, let alone practical?

Blink, don't hold your breath too long! The reason no one has used more than four layers in DVD research has been the heat trapped in the "inter" layers. You'll be able to fry eggs and Canada Bacon on it---- causing expansion and bubbling, possibly melting the rigid glass/plastic surface. Remember that "red" laser is extremely close to infrared HEAT, so, without laser diodes being extremely small, low power and with curved lens, the platter will require a lot better cooling for active disks. BUT lets see more new ideas for storage or for media.

Been available down here for around a year, hardly 'new'.
All prices are here:
http://www.prodisc.com.au/
In australian dollars.

At these prices it's hardly worth worrying about authoring it yourself.

Have you seen it in action Bob? How does it look?

"You'll be able to fry eggs and Canada Bacon on it---- causing expansion and bubbling, possibly melting the rigid glass/plastic surface'

A bit of over reaction perhaps?

Apit... I sincerely doubt they would make a machine/format that melts disks. I don't know... I just get the feeling that something like that could be slightly counterproductive to their sales devision.

"the HD VMD codec is a proprietary commercial codec NOT available to the likes of you 'n me.'

Well, not available NOW, but who knows in the future. In the meantime, it seems to support pretty much what HD DVD does: mpeg1, mpeg2, mpeg4 VC1, wm9, h.264 and of course HDVHM. That's quite the collection.

And if I am reading the purposed authoring package properly, then it appears to be saying that us... the little guy... will be able to copy protect the work (AES)

All this sounds interesting, but I'm still unclear in some points:

- the authoring software is said to be compatible with regular DVD (including 2-layer) - when and how much for the multilayer ones?

- I didn't find anything about eing able to burn/play on a regular PC DVD burner; you mentioned sth on a FW upgrade; how are we suppposed to get it, with so many different DVD burners out there?

AWWWWW CRAP!!! I just bought my Toshiba HD DVD player! AAND I was lookin' to pickin' up the PS3....

try to imagine me convincing my wife for this player now...... it was nice knowin' you guys.

No, which is probably really dumb of me as the place is very close by. They did have it on display at SMPTE but I was so busy manning our stand and looking at other things I just didn't get the time. Plus any canned demo always looks good, it's more how it looks with your footage that counts. I'd be more interested if I could author and burn this myself however with the costs of having someone else do the whole deal that mighn't be such a big factor anyway.
Spot did say they were having a title authored to this format so maybe he can report back.

When the sun comes up down here I might give them a call and see if I can glean anymore info.

Bob.

Blink, heating is a real problem, notice the heat from a DL burn at low or medium speeds? Reading generates a lot less heat, so the problem with "reading" will be in the repeated long reads of the "inter" layers. The problem is stored energy in the sub-layers and their ability to dissipate the heat. I' m sure it works in a lab or a controlled demo, but can it function in a mass production environment? What is the error rate on manufacturing 6 layer disks with content? I'm not against multi-layer DVDs, but I'm concerned by the massive amount of engineering data shows the "limits" of red lasers, by all the big boys from Toshiba to Philips.

Manufacturing errors in critical designs has hurt all the big boys, ie Sony Li batteries to GM fuel tanks to Concorde aircraft.

"The problem is stored energy in the sub-layers and their ability to dissipate the heat. I' m sure it works in a lab or a controlled demo, but can it function in a mass production environment?"

According to Farss, HD VMD has been operating in Australia for a year or more. Last time I checked, Australia was an independent Country.... don't think I have heard anyone calling it a "lab" before!? Not sure about you but i have yet to hear of anyone melting a disk! I think your imagination is a bit off the mark.

Bob maybe you can tell us... has anybody melted a disk... burned a house down.... set a forest fire or anything of that nature with one of these dangerous firestarters?

"Last time I checked, Australia was an independent Country.." Blink are you sure about that, was it posted on AVS forums ? ;-) Does Canada "trade" with Australia? ;-)

Well, Blink, if you reread my post, the word "possibly" was used with phrase " melting the rigid glass/plastic surface". ;-) More simply put, the heat can deform the surface/the thickness of the disk, effecting the layers' thickness and relative layer thickness across the disk, affecting the laser reading angle.

Yeah, okay Apit what ever you say.

I'll tell you what... I'll call the HD VMD people first thing tomorrow and let them know that they'll have to stop selling these systems because there is a person on the Vegas forum that ensures they are a fire hazard.

Well these NME guys who are making this cheap HD DVD player are very small, right? They got some financing -- ok -- but it's a penny stock at best -- They'll sell some units in India maybe --- A blip on the radar screen of the big guys, right? -- Just because these guys have a low price point that could sell some unsophisticated users at Amazon or Wal-Mart or Costco .. why worry? Their product will not have the content from the big studios to drive it, right? They have no real chance in the US and other big markets.

Of course, I do remember IBM -- Big Blue -- had this small vendor with a group of geeky guys with a small time operating system that was not even multi-user and certainly nothing but a limited thing for home use -- nothing as good as Unix or Apple or even CPM or MPM .. why worry?

OK, Blinky, play nice. Before you unleash your condescending sarcasm, it might help if you had an understanding of the facts.

Apit does have a perfectly valid concern. They don't call it a DVD burner for nothing. The laser actually does burn small pits in the dye by focusing the laser energy through a lens into a microscopic area, much like a magnifying glass can focus the sun's energy. This small point has a very high temperature, but not much total heat. Nevertheless, if there were 5 or 6 layers, it is quite possible, in fact, quite likely, that there would be enough heat to bubble or otherwise disturb the other layers. Perhaps the HD-VMD people have worked this out, but the tolerances are much more critical than for single layer, or even dual layer, media.

John

Applications for VMD technology include archiving.
Wouldn't we all like to believe a DVD disc can possibly hold 200 gigs.
Save me a fortune in harddrive storage.

NME's CEO is rather convincing and gives a clear explanation of the technology, but doesn't mention any problem with heat.. Listen if you have the time...

NME speaks

I'll tell you what... I'll call the HD VMD people first thing tomorrow and let them know that they'll have to stop selling these systems because there is a person on the Vegas forum that ensures they are a fire hazard. The drives come with fire extinguishers :)

Interestingly enough, perform a search on the web on "Computer Fires". I was amazed at how many articles listed for laptops & some desktops. So a positive on this thread is to have an up to date extinguisher in the home. Not near the computer but usually within 10 ft of the kitchen area. Which happens to be part of the building code in the US now.

Half an hour on the phone and not enough notes so take all of this with a grain of salt!

Authoring costs (in AUD):

BD $10K / hour
HD DVD $4.5K / hour
HD VMD $2.5 / hour.

Preferred format for submission: HDCAM SR.
For HD VMD will accept mpeg-2 files at 50Mb/sec but you really want to run tests before production "funky things might happen".

HD VMD can hold at least 1 hour on 4 layers, has been tested for days looping the same disk. Probably will add VC1 codec in the near future.
Desktop authoring software is in local beta test.
Blank media available with AquaGlass finish.

NME is a small European company with not enough capital, consider the format curretly a transitional one...or maybe not. They might just grow legs because the rest are a mess.

BD will not be stable until Easter next year, been playing catchup with HD DVD:

1) Original BD spec meant no backwards compatibility i.e. wouldn't play existing SD DVDs. That got changed.

2) Ver 1.3 of BD spec adds ability to access online content, BD concedes HD DVD got it right on this one. Only problem is current players will not play V1.3 disks, period, yikes!

Quite a number of studio titles will be available on HD VMD. Doing very well in India which of course is a market that dwarfs the USA. Current growth rate for HD VMD is 1000% per annum.

What does this all mean for most of us, in my opinion:
If you've got a corporate client that wants a HiDef showreel to run at a trade show etc HD VMD is a very viable option. Authoring costs and the costs of a player are very low, what's not to like. The player will run day in, day out, more than can be said for most of them.
If you're thinking about which camp is going to win a place in the living room, anyones guess really, the waters are still too muddied.

We *may* run a trial feeding 4:4:4 into the Cinevision encoder to produce a demo reel on HD VMD. Need to dang well shoot something first :)

Bob.

Farss, I think 3XDVD is a safer bet for Show display setups right now, because getting spare units on the fly is a lot easier. But if you are selling to a small government unit then the unique hardware of HD VMD can be advantage.

The HD VMD 4layer sounds a lot better that 6layer with red laser for consumer use. But without a security encoding method, what big studio would use it for any profitable content media? Maybe "B" movies?

I would think if this product technology had legs, someone in EU with money would be pushing it in Russia, Asia,Middle East, Latin America,etc then India. Sadly, tho India market is massive,there is no average disposable income to drive profitable sales at this time.

"BD will not be stable until Easter next year, been playing catchup with HD DVD:" Well, I believe HD DVD is going thru a lot of changes, from 1080p,1080p24 to 51G, and the online media is more buzz that reality for the moment. In the US, HighSpeed cable is still far behind Japan and the EU, sadly to say. The average DVD player owner is still not an Internet Cable user, so Average Joe or GrandMa Joan is not going to ungrade if it requires an additional monthly fees without some serious benefits.

"Only problem is current players will not play V1.3 disks" I believe you are wrong here, if you are stating the movies do not play. There are some Samsung players that are having some problems, playing V1.3 disks smoothly. Samsung claims there is a firmware update coming to fix this problem, no confirmed date posted. Panasonic have made the latest firmware2.4 available online.

Well, look... I think BOTH the HD/BD sides have been FORCED into making some changes in order to stay competitive with each other. These are UNPREPARED changes that were not seen and included in the present line of hardware. Now we'll see what happens with the 51 gig disk, but so far the HD side has been able to make those changes without creating a bunch of obsolete machines. We pretty much know to this point that BD has not been so lucky. Their machines simply do not include the necessary hardware (modems, dual video decoders, memory) to match the operations of the HD players. The 51gig disk MAY be the breaker for HD, at this point we don't know, but they a ARE at least TRYING hard to make it work with existing hardware.

But THIS is where I see HD VMD having the upper hand. It is simple red laser technology that has not been caught up in all these complications. Average Joe has made it pretty clear that they are perfectly happy with their standard dvd player which doesn't get into this 1080i/p, lossy/lossless True HD audio, extra bandwidth, on-line extras and shopping (yes, Universal has now added on line shopping ability!?). I think at this point both sides have lost the point of all this.... and that is to play movies at a good price. The idea here is to bring affordable hi def to the public. and although HD DVD is much closer, neither one of the blue laser technologies are anywhere close enough. The cheapest HD DVD player is more than 6 times the price of a cheap dvd player and the movies are at least twice the price

HD VMD is a straight forward and simple red laser technology that has the ability to drop its price much faster and further than the other 2 blue laser camps do. Because there is no blue laser, then in theory anyway, they should be able to come pretty close to the standard dvd price.....which has some serious potential from the consumer's point of view..... and at the end of the day... it's the consumer in the driver's seat, not Sony, Toshiba, the studios... etc

Now, will the studios bite down on this? I kind of doubt it. This would have to work the other way around... in other words it would have to be the consumer that forces this technology on the industry, instead of the industry trying to force it on the consumer as is the case with HD/BD. It's also a much smaller company which can't swallow losses in give-aways and price incentives the way that HD/BD can... so they would have to spend a lot of money on add campaigns in making the public aware.

But who knows.... the hi def industry is one that is becoming a hard one to guess.... so I suppose anything is possible

For my money something like this
makes way more sense for playing HiDef content.

Bob.