Higher Capacity Blu-rays

[brett_day]

Interesting little artcile about a new technique Sony and Panasonic have come up with to increase storage capacity to 33.4gb per layer

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article...091222/178809/

[gvortex7]

We've been hearing news about the development of higher capacity discs for quite a while now (from many different companies, in many different capacities), but it sounds like this might be the first one that will get a serious consideration from the BDA for adoption. I like the idea. But, higher capacity discs are a moot point if studios aren't willing to maximize their potential. So, that's something that we'll need to keep an eye on if this ever gets approved by the BDA.

[Leterface]

Maby they could use these for 3D that needs more capacity than is available today if keeping the same bitrates.

[Clark Kent]

It has a chance of being added to the Blu-ray standard because it comes from the two companies with the most at stake from the success of the format, Panasonic and Sony. Longer movies are already hitting some obstacles because no studio has been willing to split a movie between two discs yet. One movie I am thinking of particularly is the extended cut of Dances With Wolves.

[jerwin]

So, does this mean we'll have to buy new players?

[Clark Kent]

Originally Posted by jerwin

So, does this mean we'll have to buy new players?

I doubt anyone knows at this point. It is unlikely that any upgrade like this that could not be implemented through firmware would be approved. But it might be piggybacked on the adoption of 3-D players.

[Hep]

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

It has a chance of being added to the Blu-ray standard because it comes from the two companies with the most at stake from the success of the format, Panasonic and Sony. Longer movies are already hitting some obstacles because no studio has been willing to split a movie between two discs yet. One movie I am thinking of particularly is the extended cut of Dances With Wolves.

If I recall, Alexander (Final Cut) was split over two BDs, albeit two BD25s (of course it was Warner, and with one of their early vanilla DD soundtracks to boot, glad that's over). But ya, increased capacity is welcome if we can get those longer movies and 3D on there without sacrificing quality.

[jeffb66]

My understanding from other posts in this forum is that a single BD50 can easily fit over 4 hours HD if done properly without any loss of quallity. The splitting of a movie between 2 discs should be much less common now that BD50s are used for most movies.

[brett_day]

Originally Posted by jerwin

So, does this mean we'll have to buy new players?

nope, i found the article on engadget originally and they added that a firmware update wold make everything rosey

[Jeff Kleist]

Remember that CDs started at 650 and then made 700. DVDs went from 4.2-4.7gig.

As replication and error correction improves, they can use more of the disc surface reliably

[jerwin]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Remember that CDs started at 650 and then made 700. DVDs went from 4.2-4.7gig.

CDROMs did improve. DVDs? It may be one of definition. Is a gigabyte 10^9 bytes, or 2^30 bytes?

[Clark Kent]

Originally Posted by Hep

If I recall, Alexander (Final Cut) was split over two BDs, albeit two BD25s (of course it was Warner, and with one of their early vanilla DD soundtracks to boot, glad that's over). But ya, increased capacity is welcome if we can get those longer movies and 3D on there without sacrificing quality.

That was just Warner Bros. being cheap and porting the existing HD DVD video encode, instead of re-encoding the movie properly for a BD-50.

Originally Posted by jeffb66

My understanding from other posts in this forum is that a single BD50 can easily fit over 4 hours HD if done properly without any loss of quallity. The splitting of a movie between 2 discs should be much less common now that BD50s are used for most movies.

I follow the video numbers quite closely and any live-action film over three hours in length starts putting pressure on the fidelity of the compression. Anyone telling you differently is covering for laziness of the studios or is not a serious videophile.

See the visually superior (compared to the domestic Warner Bros. version) UK Paramount version of Watchmen: Director's Cut. At three hours and six minutes in length, the movie fills up over 48 GB of a BD-50, at an average rate of 27.24 Mpbs. Any rate below 25 Mbps for most films starts encroaching in that area where grain is not fully resolved correctly and artifacts start appearing.

[fredreed]

I don't think that the BDA will approve higher capacity blu-ray only because they are right now focusing on 3-D and also movie studios are barely using the whole 25GB or 50GB when they burn a movie onto the discs. The BDA will approve higher capacity discs when they feel that the blu-ray industry is ready for it, and when they feel that the movie studios will be able to handle this much capacity.

[jeffb66]

https://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_capacity_video

section 1.6 in the Blu-ray FAQ states that a BD of 50 GB will fit over 9 hours of HD video. I suspect this is only possible if an extreme amount of compression is done to the HD video.

The 200GB discs may be very useful for longer movies that could conveniently fit on a single disc. I woder if the BD versions of each LOTR films span two BD50s or just one disc since these films are over three hours?

[Teazle]

Is the motivation for the special number 33.4 that a triple-layer disc would then store 100GB?

I hope they'll figure out some way to mass-produce these with acceptable yields.

[LordConrad]

More space is a good thing. Maybe now they'll bring back Uncompressed PCM. Yes there IS a difference between lossless and uncompressed because I can hear it. Flame if you wish, just don't blame me if you can't hear the difference.