possible changes to hd-dvd spec??

[gandley]

while surfing a forum, i manage to pick some details out from some insiders who are usualy reliable, about possible upcoming changes problems facing HD-DVD. (this is not about format 1upmanship, but concern)
Now this is not concrete info so dont treat as such, as it is rather vague, but it doesent sound good and no HD-DVD insider has slapped it down.

anyhow a cival discussion as some of this is definately the first i have heard of it.
The chat was centred around blu rays lack of BD live profiles in first gen players (ie lack of BD live support/degrees of support and to what extent). however the following comment came up


"At least you know that BD has profiles. Wait until you see how 24p is going to be implemented on HD-DVD. BD profiles will seem moot by comparison."


"But no such plan? Perhaps you could comment on the performance level 2 and 3 proposals for HD DVD players? Would content developed for those be 100% compatible with current HD DVD players?."

"The situation is worse for HD-DVD. Future players won't be able to play currently authored titles to their full potential."

+ AACS when fully implementated may have further issues with current software

??

part of the appeal of HD-DVD is one spec fits all, not different profiles like with blu ray, now we seem to see that toshiba/dvd forum will be releaseing new performance levels, that may actually affect compatability? or different players with differnt abilities as far as HDi goes. (looks to me like real cheap players will be peformance spec2, more expensive spec3, etc and perhaps only the likes of denon and arcam will have spec 3 players if they went HD-DVD, as i have always wondered what would be there incentive givin that the toshiba decs do great PQ and i thought fully featured.)
Unless spec2, spec3 is an evolution of the format, but again it seems this is going to cause problems for the early adopters

This seems nuts to me, and it just causes even more confusion to the end consumer. truly they must want these formats to fail if this turns out to be true.

Cool that disney is embracing VC1 thou

[kurtz]

There seems to be several strands of thought cryptically expressed during those posts - some are plausible, some are counter-intuitive:

• 24p implementation
• performance levels
• backwards compatibility playing current disks to their full potential
• AACS

The 24p implementation problem is plausible: after all, we are on the second generation players and Toshiba still can't provide 24p from what is essentially a 24p source (as long as you keep the in-move experience etc. switched off)

The performance levels are plausible: as studios want to incorporate ever more sophisticated interactive feature and games into HD-DVDs it is conceivable that you'd need more horsepower to play with the 'extras'. The movie should still be playable though.

However, I can't get my head around the concept of these new, more powerful players having problems playing the older material "to its full potential". The more powerful players should take the current disks in their stride. That doesn't ring true without a complete HD-DVD spec change.

Also, I don't see why they should design a future player that implements AACS and does not play the current discs. They would just implement AACS on future discs. I thought on the podcast we got an assurance from the HD-DVD Toshiba rep that current disks would always remain playable.

If Toshiba and the HD-DVD studios are seriously thinking about changing the specs just 9 months after releasing it in the U.S. and a few weeks after a half-hearted 'release' in Europe then they are actively encouraging the format failure. Toshiba would lose hugely: there would be every incentive to go for playing on your PC (which is far more upgradable) rather than bothering with a successively constrained 'dedicated' player. Assuming that they had not sufficiently antagonised the early adopters to ditch the format.

I *hope* there's a degree of FUD mixed in with those forum posts and that some HD-DVD insider will respond to them. Maybe there's some confusion here over future players which would be capable of playing the triple layer disks?

[Nic Rhodes]

It is easy to play 24p now with a computer so it is perfectly possible. The org are looking at a good 'standard' way to implement this across the format at the moment as it it is not a 'quick fix' but I suspect the reluctance atm may be more to do with the number of Toshiba panels that take 24p It is however FAR more difficult than BD to do this as the 24p / pure matching audio assumption may not be correct .

Some of the other stuff is a bit more confused and I cannot make it all out but re better players doing mor stuff. TrueHD is an example we have already. This is optional on the HD DVD spec at 5.1 (mandatory at 2) so we are seeing this already but is no different to BD in this respect where many audio codecs are optional. I suspect we will see all players doing core DTS and optional DTS MA decoding on both formats. Seems quite sensible to me.

Re AACS has it been decided on yet? If no (it has been going on for ages) then I am not sure how people can comment other than in the broadest terms, certainly not how it might effect current specific products.

[ianh64]

Originally Posted by Nic Rhodes

Some of the other stuff is a bit more confused and I cannot make it all out but re better players doing mor stuff. TrueHD is an example we have already. This is optional on the HD DVD spec at 5.1 (mandatory at 2) so we are seeing this already but is no different to BD in this respect where many audio codecs are optional. I suspect we will see all players doing core DTS and optional DTS MA decoding on both formats. Seems quite sensible to me.

I asked Amir the specific question about Dolby TrueHD at 2 and 5.1 channels. Theoretically the players only need to implement 2 channel Dolby TrueHD, but in practice he said that all future players will be 5.1 (and I guess above if 7.1 ever catches on). The release players were a one off, and prompted a flurry of both TrueHD and DD+ authored discs. But now version 2.0 of Toshiba firmware is out, the technical differences between 2 and 5.1 (and beyond) are negligible making future HD-DVD players with only 2 channel decode somewhat remote. He also said that this will be reflected in the authored discs, with Dolby True HD replacing DD+ soundtracks.

[Jeff]

24p doesn't require any standard changes, Toshiba could implement it on the EX1/AX2 if they wanted to.

[Nic Rhodes]

Originally Posted by ianh64

I asked Amir the specific question about Dolby TrueHD at 2 and 5.1 channels. Theoretically the players only need to implement 2 channel Dolby TrueHD, but in practice he said that all future players will be 5.1 (and I guess above if 7.1 ever catches on). The release players were a one off, and prompted a flurry of both TrueHD and DD+ authored discs. But now version 2.0 of Toshiba firmware is out, the technical differences between 2 and 5.1 (and beyond) are negligible making future HD-DVD players with only 2 channel decode somewhat remote. He also said that this will be reflected in the authored discs, with Dolby True HD replacing DD+ soundtracks.

Ian I agree with you totally but the internet chat will look at the spec which says 2 mandatory and 5.1 optional and will talk about two 'standards' of player when in reality everyone will likely be just get delivered one in practice. In the early days with the first couple of discs doing 5.1 TrueHD people were saying that these current players could not play them as the were only TrueHD 2 channel.

What about DTS MA? Are we getting this as standard in 2.1?

[Nic Rhodes]

Originally Posted by Jeff

24p doesn't require any standard changes, Toshiba could implement it on the EX1/AX2 if they wanted to.

Jeff I was not talking about a standard re regulations but a common way to implement this across all HD DVD producers to make it looks like the same format, hence the 'punctuation'.

Dustin, I responded to that claim here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&&#post9274141

Net, net, these are proposals whichs are a far cry from baked profiles already in BD spec. And that BD will have to deal with these performance metrics just the same.

[tazpc]

Welcome to AVforums Amir, I think it will be good for debate and openess for you to clarify that you are the same Amir from AVSforum. Employed by Microsoft and a HD-DVD format proponent. Your arguments are well versed and I respect that but equally knowing from which angle you are coming from would get rid of any misconceptions that may ensue. It may even be worth putting it in your profile.

Welcome again.