We heard last year that Warner Brothers patented some technology to do with creating a hybrid HD DVD and Blu-ray disc. It looks like their hard work is actually going to amount for something, because Warner will introduce its new “Total HD” disc at CES this tomorrow, according to the NY Times. Warner’s Barry M. Meyer says that Warner came up with the Total HD disc when they concluded that neither format would win the format war anytime soon. Warner Brothers is also working on a disc that will include the DVD format as well.

Any more details will have to wait until Tuesday. The biggest question of course is: how many layers? How many HD DVD layers will Total HD support, and how many BD layers? It is vital to the HD DVD camp that the format supports at least two layers, for 30GB of storage. The BD camp would like to see two layers as well, for 50GB of storage, though this is not as vital. Many 25GB BD discs look quite good, and it quality in 25GB discs seems to be more related to the authoring process than to space limitation.

So I eagerly await tomorrow’s announcement from Warner Brothers, and hope to buy some Total HD discs soon.

New Disc May Sway DVD Wars

Gosh! chalk this up to the “we saw this one a mile away”.

It seems that DVD sales will decline in 2007. Well duh! Hollywood doesn’t like the consumer.

Ever hear of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt)? Just look at how Hollywood has treated it’s DVD consumer.

First they come out with the vanilla movie, then 3 months later come out with an extended edition, then 6 months later they come out with the special edition, then the next year comes the super-duper-extended-special-directors-cut edition. This scares the consumer into just standing and freezing because the edition they buy today will not be the new super-duper version of tomorrow. Case in point, Narnia. They came out with a simple and kind of extended version last year. This year comes the special extended version with new content. Who knows what comes after that. This kind of marketing just scares and frustrates consumers.

So what is an uncertain consumer to do? Well first it is driving people in droves to Netflix/Blockbuster to see the movie on day one, then maybe picking up the super edition the next year. Problem with this thinking is that people forget about the movie by then and the few extras don’t drive people back to pick it up. Again with Narnia, since they didn’t tell me about this edition and they weren’t honest with me, I won’t be picking it up.

On the doubt front, movie studios don’t let the consumer know what version will come out at a future date and what to expect till just before the new edition comes out. This again makes consumers freeze and not pick up the DVD since they are left ignorant of what the next edition will bring.

A couple of things Hollywood should take note of when creating a DVD. Take a look at the LOTR (Lord of the Rings) trilogy. Up front they told consumers there would be two versions. One theatrical and one extended. They were also told the extended would be much better (DTS soundtrack, new scenes, 2 disks of extras). This drove sales for each version because of the honesty to the consumer before the first DVD came out. The second example I would want Hollywood to look at would be The Incredibles. Day one they distribute a great DVD with many extras and a person knows that there is no super edition coming in just 6 months.

So if Hollywood wants to see quality sales, they need to stop the FUD with the consumers and start being honest with us on what to expect when.

Not Many Hoorays in Hollywood: DVD Sales Slump, Digital Distribution Looks Like a Bust - SeekingAlpha

HD DVD on one side, DVD on the other. Forget that! That’s so 2006. A couple of Warner Engineers have something bigger in mind - BD, HD DVD, and DVD all on the same disc!

Details are sketchy. All we really have is the names of the two engineers - Alan Bell and Lewis Ostrover. So we’ll have to see where this goes.

Just one problem: already the hybrid discs (HD DVD and DVD) are quite on the expensive side. Just imagine how much more expensive adding a BD layer will be? I would only buy a disc like this if the price difference is negligible between the combo disc and the single-format disc.

Warner Engineers Patent Triple Hybrid Disc

While Sony struggles to get their 2-layer Blu-ray discs out the door, Toshiba and Memory-Tech are working on a 3-layer hybrid disc. That’s a DVD / HD DVD hybrid, and you can have it two ways, if you like. You can have one DVD layer and two HD DVD layers. Or, you can have two DVD players and one HD DVD layer. Neat stuff.

Toshiba will be making these new versions compatible with all DVD and HD DVD players, which is amazing if you ask me.

Toshiba and Memory-Tech will be putting these new disc formats to the DVD standards body for approval.

There is already an existing hybrid in use: a single DVD layer smushed with a single HD DVD layer. There are two problems with that format, and the new formats only partially solve one of them.

First off, capacity. There just wasn’t enough room on the hybrid discs. But I don’t think the new “DVD Twin” formats discs completely solve that. HD DVD releases are typically two-layer affairs. Ditto for DVD movies. So studios will have to cut corners somewhere to get a movie to fit on a single layer, whether that be the DVD layer or the HD DVD layer. At least they have the choice.

Second, price. The hybrid discs available up until now have been pretty pricey affairs. Insulating yourself against the future is a very expensive affair. Plus it’s risky. If you’re buying a hybrid disc now to use in your DVD player, I assume you’re looking to get an HD DVD player one day. For that person, the HD DVD player purchase is not an immediate thing. They’re investing in the HD DVD format without getting any immediate benefit. What if HD DVD fails against BD? You’ll have made investments in a failing format, without even getting any benefit from it.

Three-Layer HD DVD/DVD Hybrid Bows

The other day I reported that MI3 was coming out on HD DVD. Now if c|net is to be believed, Paramount will be releasing MI3 (Mission Impossible III, starring Tom Cruise) on DVD, HD DVD, and BD, all on the same day, on October 30th. It would be the first ever movie released on all three formats at once. c|net has more. ‘The two-disc Special Collector’s Edition DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc will each come loaded with special features, including five deleted scenes, Easter eggs (hidden special features), theatrical trailers and four documentaries: “The Making of the Mission,” “Mission Action: Inside the Action Unit,” “Visualizing the Mission” and “Scoring the Mission.” The HD DVD and Blu-ray versions also will feature the film in 1080p high definition with 5.1 Dolby Digital Plus.‘

HD DVD buyers will get an added bonus - an “enhanced commentary” with Abrams and star Tom Cruise that “shows them talking in a corner of the screen while the movie is playing”. I would be miffed about the lack of such a feature on the BD, except that I never care much for commentaries anyway.

‘M:I-3′: Simultaneous release in three DVD formats

I have always been partial to Denon products, and their new DVD player lineup looks particularly tasty! The great part is that it extends from their $369 DVD-1930CI all the way to their $1499 DVD-3930CI, so everyone can join in the party. The only question is, does it make sense to spend the dough on one of these players, or jump on in to a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player? Personally, I am not satisfied with the offerings from Samsung and Toshiba/RCA right now, but whether to wait for the next crop is a whole different question.

Electronic House article

So you have an HDTV and want to take some home movies in full 1080i glory to show on that HDTV? Sony has some new camcorders for you. The HDR-UX1 records to the small DVD discs, the HDR-SR1 includes a 30GB HDD.

The camcorders have HDMI connectors, and you can even use them with a wireless Bluetooth microphone. You might be wondering what format these things use to store their content, and the answer is AVCHD(TM), based on MPEG4 AVC/H.264.

The HDR-UX1 will be available in September for about $1400, and the HDR-SR1 will go for $1500 in October.

Sony Ushers in Next Wave of High-Def Home Movies

The first time I watched Blade Runner I was rather young and I have to say that I didn’t really like it. Over time though I’ve come to appreciate the movie, though feelings from my first movie still linger. It helps that it stars Harrison Ford, one of my favourite actors.

And now Blade Runner is making its way to both BD and HD DVD, according to The Digital Bits. In September Blade Runner is coming to DVD. (And of course BD and HD DVD versions are in the works too.) This will be the 1992 Director’s Cut. This version of the movie will be only available for four months.

Next year will bring the REAL director’s cut: Blade Runner: The Final Cut. This is the version Mr. Ridley Scott wants you to see. Personally, I’ve put off buying DVD’s of any kind until I gen an HD disc player. This might be one of the few movies I’ll end up actually buying instead of renting.

The Digital Bits - We Know DVD!

Home Theater magazine takes a look at Toshiba’s 32HLX95 LCD HDTV. This is an LCD HDTV and DVD player combo device, for those places in your home where space is at a premium or if you just think it’s cool!

This HDTV has a CableCARD slot, an HDMI input, ATSC and NTSC tuners, the built-in DVD player, and a D-Sub 15-pin connector for hooking this baby up to your computer. It has a resolution of 1366 x 768 and costs $2,500. The reviewer likes the colour accuracy.

The HDTV has its quirks, but if you’re looking for convenience, then this TV may be for you.

Home Theater: Toshiba 32HLX95 LCD HDTV

Stop bugging me already! I know, I know! It’s not an HD device! But it does upconvert to HD resolutions over its HDMI outputs, so I thought that Lexicon’s RT-20 Universal Disc Player was worth a mention.

Of particular note to me was this remark by the reviewer, Steven Stone:

The Lexicon via HDMI 720p revealed that many DVDs that I had assumed were only fair-to middling transfers were much better than I realized. Not only do the Lexicon’s HDMI connections contain far lower amounts of video noise than I’ve seen before, but also have more complex and accurate colors. Most of the highlight and edge halos and noise that were so bothersome through the Optoma H-79’s component connections vanished with an HDMI connection! After seeing how much better every title can look through HDMI outputs, I can’t see why anyone would ever use component connections if they had a choice.

But at $4495 MSRP, is it really worth it with HD DVD and BD players coming to market this year?

I have to wonder.

Ultimate AV: Lexicon RT-20 Universal Disc Player

Home Theater Magazine reviews the NeuNeo HVD2085 upconverting DVD player.

The Good

This player’s claim to fame is that it upconverts all DVD’s to 1080p via both the HDMI and component outputs. I don’t know how they got around the legal ramifications, but it seems like they did. Either that or this player will be pulled off the market. As far as I knew, manufacturers were only allowed to upconvert to HD on the copy-protected HDMI output. Not only that, but this DVD player is region free and the HDMI output doesn’t pass HDCP. Which means there’s no copy protection on it.

How’s that for consumer rights?

The palette of available output resolutions is amazing: 480i, 480p, VGA, 576p, SVGA, 720p, XGA, SXGA, 1080i, 1080p. And that’s on both the HDMI and component outputs.

The Bad

Too good to be true? Well, kinda, yeah:

The HVD2085 does have a rather significant Achilles heel. For some inexplicable reason, it doesn’t have 3:2 pulldown detection on 720p or 1080p, but it does have it for 480p. I was so dumbfounded by this oversight that I checked and rechecked with every piece of test material I could put my hands on. Take, for example, the end of chapter 12 of Gladiator, our normal test scene. Little jagged edges were visible on the stairs, the roof tops, and the Coliseum itself. This was the case with most material. The jaggies weren’t as bad as most players that don’t do 3:2, but they were still there. When there was an angle that was, say 25 degrees or less, it would have small jaggies. With an otherwise amazing DVD player, this oversight was extremely depressing. Video processing was also only OK, with small jaggies on the flag sequence on the Silicon Optix HQV Benchmark DVD. For those with 720p or 1080p TVs, this lack of 3:2 is probably a deal breaker. For those with 1080i TVs (and there are plenty of you out there), this isn’t an issue (you don’t need 3:2 pulldown with interlace).

So even though this player can upconvert to 720p and 1080p, it’s picture quality in those modes isn’t that good. Doh!

The Conclusion

So this is a majorly cool DVD player with a majorly bad problem. Outside of that problem, of course, there is also Hollywood, which you know is going to object to this player. We’ll have to wait and see how that resolves itself.

Home Theater: NeuNeo HVD2085 1080p Upconverting DVD Player

Nope, this thing isn’t an HD DVD player or Blu-ray player. It’s the same old DVD with a twist. The twist is upconversion to 1080p. So this is one of the few sources out there for 1080p content, though it won’t be the real thing because it’s just upconverted. But still, you can test your display’s 1080p input now!

Like any newfangled player worth its salt, the DV9600 is sporting the trick video processing and scaling, with HDMI outputs connected to full 10-bit scaling and processing powered by Anchor Bay Technologies (ABT), creator of the vaunted DVDO line of video processing. In addition to 480p, 720p and 1080i outputs the DV9600 also outputs 1080p to support 1080p displays.

Ultimate AV - New 1080p DVD Player From Marantz

I’ve previously mentioned this NeuNeo DVD player because it puts out 1080p on its HDMI output. It seems like that info may have been wrong, but I’m not sure. About.com has a review of the player, and in two places it says that the 1080p is for component output, not HDMI. But in another place it says that the HDMI will do 1080p. So which is it?

On paper this thing has quite an array of features. It can play back DVD-Video, DVD+R/+RW/-R/-RW, HVD, CD/CDR/CDRW/CD-MP3/HDCD and JPEG. I guess it can convert to 720p or 1080i over the HDMI output, and 720p, 1080i, or 1080p via component output. They didn’t even test the 1080p component output.

Video performance was mixed:

the 2085 produced mixed results, with the Samsung 931 outperforming the NeuNeo in performance tests in HDMI/DVI output mode … and also in 480p component output mode.

NOTE: The Samsung 931 does not feature upscaling through component output. The 1080p function of the 2085 was not tested.

The 2085’s component output produced best results, in both standard and upscaled resolutions. One shortcoming - somewhat dimished video quality when adapting the HDMI output to a TV with DVI input; It would be nice to offer both output options.

In terms of detail and color, the 2085 faired well. However, moire and jaggies elimination during motion were average. Video noise reduction tests revealed some background video noise, but was not excessive.

The component video output yielded better black levels and more saturated color than the HDMI-to-DVI connection. This may be the result of converting HDMI to DVI. In terms of overall video quality, the images produced by the 2085 looked better using the component video connection option, rather than HDMI.

So while the NeuNeo HVD2085 seems to have lots of cool whiz-bang features, including HVD decoding, it needs some work in the quality department.

About.com - NeuNeo HVD2085 DVD Player