Archived: Insiders Thread

[Slapper]

Thanks for the quick response Paid. I really appreciate all the work you guys do and that you still take the time to come over here and keep us "in the know."

I'll let my bud know he was wrong.

[Slapper]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

Well it wouldn't be in VC-1 that's for sure. H.264/AVC is *the* broadcast standard for future OTA-HD.

Yeah, I realized I should have said "or lower bitrate AVC encodes" after I posted.
Thanks for the help!

[paidgeek]

Originally Posted by Talkstr8t

October is Fall. Until we see it or paidgeek confirms, we can make no assumptions about this player...

[/QUOTE]

The HS2000 is a profile 1.0 player.

[David Forbes]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

The HS2000 is a profile 1.0 player.

Paid, are there some true technical hurdles to still overcome with profile 1.1 and 2.0 players? It would be nice if more (any?) of these were announced.

Thanks.

David

[Rob Tomlin]

Originally Posted by paidgeek

This is an easy one to answer. We are not making any preparations of any kind for possible release of our titles on HD-DVD and there is not the slightest possiblity that we will begin doing so.

[Talkstr8t]

Originally Posted by Bombthroat

Do you have any comment regarding what I have stated above? Does the BDA have data to suggest that the current audience (hardcore) is indifferent to PiP and thus the reason it hasn't seemed like a high priority to get released?

Absolutely not. Just as BD specs exceed HD DVD specs in virtually every category, the collective BDA vision is being able to offer compelling interactivity well beyond what's being offered today. This is one of the reasons BD-J is important; it's far more open-ended in terms of future capabilities. Don't believe the claims in AVS that "BD customers don't care about interactivity"; some users do, and some don't, but the format is certainly designed to exceed expectations in this area.

The issue was whether to delay Blu-ray launch until 1.1/2.0 were fully-implementable (and there was a silicon dependency here), or release with a grace period profile and transition to full 1.1/2.0 support. While the second option is certainly not ideal (especially for those buyers who care about secondary audio/video), the net impact will be relatively small, especially if the PS3 receives a firmware update to full 1.1/2.0 compatibility. I think it's clear that had Blu-ray delayed launch for a year or more it never would have had a chance to catch up to that sort of availability head start from HD DVD.

[scott1256ca]

How time consuming, difficult or expensive is it to test discs coming off the production line?

Even if the 85% yield rate is true, surely the manufacturer or studio does not want 15 out of every 100 to be defective, so they must test to remove the defective ones. Correct?

Thanks

[kjack]

Originally Posted by Talkstr8t

The issue was whether to delay Blu-ray launch until 1.1/2.0 were fully-implementable (and there was a silicon dependency here...

Now that this is mentioned, the schedule for Profiles revolved around appropriate SoC solutions (including firmware) being available. And not just one SoC being available, but several to allow CE player manufacturers choice in how they want to design their players. Things were much more clearly thought out than some people think...

[scott1256ca]

Can you tell us roughly, what the difference is going to be between manufacturing a Profile 1.0 vs. Profile 1.1 player? Is the SoC much more expensive?

Is this the reason that a few manufacturers are releasing 1.0 players? Are they thinking the cost, and therefore MSRP are going to be too high for profile 1.1 or profile 2.0?

Thanks

[kjack]

Originally Posted by scott1256ca

Can you tell us roughly, what the difference is going to be between manufacturing a Profile 1.0 vs. Profile 1.1 player? Is the SoC much more expensive?

SoC is no more expensive, and for some SoC suppliers, are actually lower cost due to much higher volumes and cost reduction efforts. Some players will have slight additional cost for the local storage, while others will use external local storage to keep player cost minimal.

[scott1256ca]

Thank you Keith:

Do you have any reason you can provide as to why the new BD players are only announced as being able to do profile 1.0 and not profile 1.1 or 2.0?

[kjack]

Originally Posted by scott1256ca

Do you have any reason you can provide as to why the new BD players are only announced as being able to do profile 1.0 and not profile 1.1 or 2.0?

CE companies do not like to rush things out, and have a very thorough QA program. In short, they do not like to have consumers have to do software upgrades for bug fixes.

[stockstar1138]

Originally Posted by kjack

CE companies do not like to rush things out, and have a very thorough QA program. In short, they do not like to have consumers have to do software upgrades for bug fixes.

well, there are some companies that like to rush things out..... XBOX FreeFixMe!

[Hanzaki]

Is it important to have Profile 1.1 players? Why BDA just cancel the 1.1 and go straight to the Profile 2.0. This two HDM standards (blu-ray and hd-dvd) have already confused and scared away lots of people. If there will be 3 other standards (profile 1.0, 1.1, 2.0) inside the Blu-ray standard there will be even more confusing situation.

I'm pretty sure Sony won't cancel their Profile 1.0 players after the release of the new 2.0 version. So there wil be 3 type of Sony players in the shop. Don't you fear that the people will be even more confused and give up all the hdm eventually?

What is the plan to avoid this situation? At least I hope there is some plan...

[scott1256ca]

Thanks again for your reply Keith.

CE companies do not like to rush things out, and have a very thorough QA program. In short, they do not like to have consumers have to do software upgrades for bug fixes.

Apparently you are not talking about Toshiba

[WickyWoo]

Apparently you are not talking about Toshiba

Didn't you know that's the great part. The Ethernet port lets them stealth update

[Bombthroat]

Originally Posted by Talkstr8t

Absolutely not. Just as BD specs exceed HD DVD specs in virtually every category, the collective BDA vision is being able to offer compelling interactivity well beyond what's being offered today. This is one of the reasons BD-J is important; it's far more open-ended in terms of future capabilities. Don't believe the claims in AVS that "BD customers don't care about interactivity"; some users do, and some don't, but the format is certainly designed to exceed expectations in this area.

The issue was whether to delay Blu-ray launch until 1.1/2.0 were fully-implementable (and there was a silicon dependency here), or release with a grace period profile and transition to full 1.1/2.0 support. While the second option is certainly not ideal (especially for those buyers who care about secondary audio/video), the net impact will be relatively small, especially if the PS3 receives a firmware update to full 1.1/2.0 compatibility. I think it's clear that had Blu-ray delayed launch for a year or more it never would have had a chance to catch up to that sort of availability head start from HD DVD.

Thanks for answering my question so thoroughly. Very much appreciated.

[WriteSimply]

Originally Posted by Hanzaki

Is it important to have Profile 1.1 players?

Yes. By end of October 2007, no BD players will be Profile 1.0. All will be a minimum Profile 1.1, which can do PiP and have higher hardware requirements than Profile 1.0.

Profile 2.0 is basically Profile 1.1 with additional features and even higher hardware requirements. The reason why there are two profiles instead of just one is that CEs can produce and price them at different price points. Some people want internet connectivity and some don't. Some won't use Managed Copy and others will.

I'll stop the discussion here.

Originally Posted by kjack

Now that this is mentioned, the schedule for Profiles revolved around appropriate SoC solutions (including firmware) being available. And not just one SoC being available, but several to allow CE player manufacturers choice in how they want to design their players. Things were much more clearly thought out than some people think...

Ah. Thanks for illuminating the subject, Keith. This is why HD-DVD was out of the gate earlier: because they built it around an Intel PC processor, making the units PC-lite player - just like the X-Box/360. Don't worry - I won't quote you on that. And to think that the HD-DVD fanatics said that those players can't POSSIBLY be subsidized.

Keith, how fast can a BD player go from conceptualizing to putting the components together? I understand how the SoC solution makes it a simpler process. So how long really? And if your reference design/SoC solution doesn't exist, how much longer would it have taken?


fuad

[WickyWoo]

Ah. Thanks for illuminating the subject, Keith. This is why HD-DVD was out of the gate earlier: because they built it around an Intel PC processor, making the units PC-lite player - just like the X-Box/360

XBox was a PC kludge. 360 is an original design, ground up.

[Hanzaki]

Originally Posted by WriteSimply

Yes. By end of October 2007, no BD players will be Profile 1.0.

You mean the NEW players which will be released AFTER end of October wont be 1.0? The old ones will be still 1.0 (or hopefully upgradeable to 1.1).

Well we'll see that how it will work. Thanks for the answer.