New High Definition format (HD VMD) in france

[DaDane]

My translation from a danish website about computers and technology (IN DANISH)

French moviedistributors are making a new and cheap alternative to both HD DVD and Blu-ray.

The frech moviedistributors are betting on a third and cheaper alternative to Blu-ray and HD-DVD by supporting the french developed High Definition Versatile Multilayer Disc (HD VMD).

According to New Medium Enterprice, who is the company behind the 3. super-dvd-platform, HD VMD can store up to 48 GB of material and are fully compatible with the HD DVD 1080p format. The player can also play DVD's and CD's (My remark, - I don't really know if they mean HD DVD or just a High Definition DVD format i.e. just 1080p)

The format will support all HD screens on the marcet and the price in france will be 299€ including 5 titles.

Until now only two of the biggest moviedistributors in France have decided to release movies for this player.

It should be possible to buy american titles to within to long though. Both of the french companies have made a 3-year agreement with the american internetcompany PC Rush.

The player will be released in France in September. At that time they expect to have 20 titles ready, - and another 5 titles every month.

[DaDane]

My own thoughs:

To little and to late? 48 GB might be better than HD DVD, but not as good as Blu-ray.

Price is good sure, - but that's pretty much all it have.

20 titles, - whau.

If it truely is HD DVD compatible it might be a bit different though. That will be another hefty price reduction to that format, - and also show development. So perhaps some might thing that eventually HD DVD will hold as much as Blu-ray (which I don't believe. That will render all of the players already sold useless, - unless they can software upgrade them through the internet or something). Still it might make people decide to buy HD DVD, - even if there is no reason for that.

[DaDane]

Here is a comparison between the formats, - it's quite clear that it is NOT compatible with HD DVD. It uses a red laser!

But it has up to 8 layers.

[theknub]

those 8 layer discs are pretty reliable.

how is that whole delaminating going again?

[Ascended_Saiyan]

Originally Posted by DaDane

Here is a comparison between the formats, - it's quite clear that it is NOT compatible with HD DVD. It uses a red laser!

But it has up to 8 layers.

That chart is not accurate! They are lying to me this early in their campaign? I definitely wouldn't look at that crap. Max. data transfer rate 36Mbps (among other things), huh? How much you wanna bet MS has given them some money too?

[Stef Nighthawk]

I see another problem with that comparison chart that misleads consumers. Currently it uses a red laser and 8 layers to achieve 48GB of storage. But it says that future VMD that holds 200GB would need a blue laser. Doesn't that mean that a consumer is required to change equipment whereas some BD-players only require a firmware upgrade?
And don't they mean Q3 2007 instead of Q3 2006? I don't see it available yet.

Oh and the maximum layers seems so wrong too.

Aren't there some Audio Codecs missing?

And why would anyone want to resurrect the use of a red laser when you also state that blue laser is needed for the future?
So the $100 - $250 players are those future-proofed for the blue laser variant of VMD? I bet they don't have a blue laser pickup.

[Shadowself]

At first glance I'm *extremely* skeptical.

I'll have to pull out an old optics text, but I'm guessing that a NA of .65 and the same red as in standard DVDs does not give the depth of field requirements necessary to resolve eight separate layers on one side. It may not be enough to do eight layers on two sides (four per side)!

There's a reason why DVD never went to 3 or 4 layers per side. It's the physical constraints of the optics and the wavelenghth. That's why anyone technically astute over on the HD DVD side admits that under the current design there cannot be a six layer (3 layers per side) HD DVD.

Anyone more adept at optics than me want to take a crack at this?

Until someone shows me this is even possible (or I check it myself) I'm going to remain extremely skeptical.

[Blackraven]

Originally Posted by Shadowself

At first glance I'm *extremely* skeptical.

I'll have to pull out an old optics text, but I'm guessing that a NA of .65 and the same red as in standard DVDs does not give the depth of field requirements necessary to resolve eight separate layers on one side. It may not be enough to do eight layers on two sides (four per side)!

There's a reason why DVD never went to 3 or 4 layers per side. It's the physical constraints of the optics and the wavelenghth. That's why anyone technically astute over on the HD DVD side admits that under the current design there cannot be a six layer (3 layers per side) HD DVD.

Anyone more adept at optics than me want to take a crack at this?

Until someone shows me this is even possible (or I check it myself) I'm going to remain extremely skeptical.

You're right about the Numerical Apperture part.

Seems bizzare that they want to cram 8 layers yet using a red laser which has a wavelength that's too big for this thing.

I don't a lot about optics or optical physics (let's not get started with Maxwell's equations or even Quantum Optics) but something is bizzare about laser wavelength and the numerical apperture of that thing.