Sony Still Claiming 50 GB Movies by Year End

[phloyd]

Video Business

Sony plans 50GB Blu-ray releases
First titles unlikely to use BD-Java; studios approach interactivity slowly
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will release at least two Blu-ray Disc titles on higher-capacity 50GB discs this year, worldwide president Ben Feingold said last week.

Declining to specify titles or the kinds of extra features the 50GB will carry, Feingold said, “All of the fun stuff is going to come, but we need to get everyone comfortable [with the format]. A lot of it will be spectacular.”

Sony has been taking its knocks from retailers and reviewers for a lack of advanced bonus features and perceived quality problems on the studio’s first Blu-ray titles—all of which have only 25GB of data capacity.

Sony Pictures executive VP of advanced technology Don Eklund said discs released this year will start to include some original value-added features. But they likely will not use the BD-Java interactive technology, which is integral to such extras as content updates over the Internet, until January.

Some early HD DVD titles, in contrast, do have interactive capabilities, such as picture-in-picture features that let viewers watch the film and bonus material simultaneously.

With the Blu-ray titles in the market so far, “we’ve been conservative … focusing on pictures and sound more than anything else,” Eklund said. “There is just one player in the market. And when we make a disc, we generally check it on every player for compatibility issues. Absent that ability to do that, we’ve been reluctant to add in other features.”

“I would expect you might see something this year [in regard to Blu-ray interactivity], but I wouldn’t guarantee it,” said Steve Nickerson, senior VP of marketing management for Warner Home Video, which supports both the Blu-ray and HD DVD formats. “The industry needs to gain experience in the new formats.”

At this month’s DisplaySearch HDTV conference, many retailers said they could discern little distinction between Blu-ray titles and standard-definition DVDs. Samsung has acknowledged operational problems with early player units, but retailers also faulted Blu-ray software (VB, 8-21).

Sony executives gave some explanations for why some titles might look better than others on Blu-ray.

“RV happens to be a very recent title,” Eklund said, referring to the Robin Williams comedy release on standard DVD and Blu-ray this month. “The quality of the film masters is variable. It’s going to depend how the film was shot, with some having more film grain and some having a sharper image.”

Typically, footage shot in high-def will transition easier to a high-def format than from straight film stock.

At the DisplaySearch event, retailers said a Samsung demo disc performed better in the Samsung Blu-ray player than many available Blu-ray films. Nickerson contends this is an apples to oranges comparison.

“When you take a high-def camera and shoot nature scenes, that is different than a title that was made ‘X’ years ago,” he said.

Filmmakers also have been making creative decisions that may not please every consumer, explained Sony’s Feingold.

“[Color] might look oversaturated, but ultimately, we allow the filmmaker significant latitude in that process,” Feingold said. “In the end, it’s their creative work.”

Additionally, some Blu-ray titles have been mastered on display monitors differently from ones consumers use for TV viewing.

“We’re going to be doing some work in the fall with filmmakers and post-production, looking at how authoring works in what consumer monitors are like today,” Feingold said, noting the influence of quickly evolving flat-panel and plasma TVs.

On the whole, Blu-ray title reviews appear to be improving. Sony partly credits its work reaching out to media critics to ensure they fully understand how best to view the format.

That last paragraph is a little interesting

[Applefiend]

I heard from a very unreliable source that Sony are having problems getting 50GB disks working with current (i.e. Sammy) BD Players...

[JTK]

Originally Posted by Applefiend

I heard from a very unreliable source that Sony are having problems getting 50GB disks working with current (i.e. Sammy) BD Players...

I heard it from someone who usually is very reliable and, at least until recently, has been regularly accused of being biased towards BD:

At least until the day he wrote the full column this snippet was taken from. :

Dated 8-25-06

Bill Hunt, of DigitalBits, wrote:

And get this: Sony STILL can't get their 50GB dual-layered Blu-ray Discs to work right on the existing and prototype players. The current Samsung player, as shipped, will not play them. How do you like them apples? Ouch.

Like I said before: I think those apples suck.

[zombie]

Only 2 BD50's this year spells doom for Sony unless they change codecs pronto.

[Applefiend]

Ouch! Them apples are rotten.

[vick vega]

What the fug is time to abandon ship?

[JTK]

Originally Posted by vick vega

What the fug is time to abandon ship?

Heavens no.

We keep saying this, and it's true: Let's see how the 4th quarter of this year goes down.

[vick vega]

yeah, but by the time the 4 quarter rolls around it might be too late to return my bdps1 to amazon. I wonder how long I have to return it if the BDA is still dragging their ass.

[zombie]

Originally Posted by vick vega

yeah, but by the time the 4 quarter rolls around it might be too late to return my bdps1 to amazon. I wonder how long I have to return it if the BDA is still dragging their ass.

If you're that concerned then return your player now. If fall turns out to look good for Blu-ray you can always pick up another player, hopefully a better one while you're at it.

[JTK]

Originally Posted by vick vega

yeah, but by the time the 4 quarter rolls around it might be too late to return my bdps1 to amazon. I wonder how long I have to return it if the BDA is still dragging their ass.

Amazon's return and exchange policies should be the same as per usual. They can't start running the clock against you until AFTER the order actually ships.

In other words: You should have 30 days to basically run it through its paces and then get rid of it if you aren't satisfied.

Two questions:

1.) Is it coming from Amazon themselves or are they playing middleman for Crutchfield, Vanns, or some other place like that?

2.) Double check the fine print to insure there are no exceptions on the usual Amazon return and exchange policy.

[phloyd]

Originally Posted by nyg

Only 2 BD50's this year spells doom for Sony unless they change codecs pronto.

Not really.

Disney and Fox are gonna have much more influence on how this plays out.

Well, maybe doom for Sony but not doom for BDA.

The WB VC-1 will give people a real choice of formats. Assuming that Disney, Paramount and Fox are going to use advanced codecs also it should not be too long before the Sony MPEG2 discs are not the majority.

[zombie]

Like I said, doom for Sony.

[suprmallet]

Even with advanced codecs for PQ, the Warner discs may still not have any advanced audio codecs, since it's not mandatory in the BD spec.

[AV_Integrated]

We can only hope that audio finds some standard stable ground to settle upon. I would think that all BD players at some point will allow any and all HD audio formats to transfer over HDMI to receivers at the very least, but many may (hopefully) have full 7.1 analog outputs to decode ALL advanced audio codecs internally. We can only hope.

[phloyd]

Originally Posted by suprmallet

Even with advanced codecs for PQ, the Warner discs may still not have any advanced audio codecs, since it's not mandatory in the BD spec.

Sure - once the pictures look the same, people will look to audio and extras as differentiators.

[georgir]

just like the first few movies already use PCM, i dont see a need to switch to anything else. lossless compressions are better than pcm i guess, but still not needed given the plenty of available space. anything else is a step back.

plus, you don't need any fancy processing if the audio is already stored uncompressed.

i say, down with dolby-molby!

[ProvenFlipper]

Originally Posted by georgir

just like the first few movies already use PCM, i dont see a need to switch to anything else. lossless compressions are better than pcm i guess, but still not needed given the plenty of available space. anything else is a step back.

plus, you don't need any fancy processing if the audio is already stored uncompressed.

i say, down with dolby-molby!

Yes, but LPCM takes up huge amounts of space that could be used for interactivity and HD extras. Why use uncompressed audio, when lossless compression methods are available.

I feel that the reason advanced audio codecs aren't being used on Blu-ray yet is due to the laziness of the studios and lack of BD-50. They may feel that since the only player on the market is in capable of decoding Dolby TruHD or DTS-HD then they should include it, when in actuality there are players on the horizon that will process this information, as well as recievers coming soon that will perform the task as well.

[Gamekid]

You know with any kind of new product out on the market, it'll be bad. I mean, the first blu-ray movies that came out were not any better then on standard DVD, but that doesn't mean that blu-ray will fail. Have a little faith in blu-ray, it will improve. Things only improve as time goes on, it doesn't get worse.

[takezo]

BD 50 will be out, it's not a matter of if, but when. I will say it once and I will say it again, eairly adopter always get screwed over. If you feel screwed over Blu-Ray, then it's your fault for being to impulsive. Sony's Blu-Ray player has not come out yet.

Blu-Ray has more player manufactures than HD-DVD. Pioneer, Panasonic, Sony, Sharp, Mitsubishi, Lite-on, Samsung.

HD-DVD only has Toshiba, RCA (Toshiba in a different box), Lite-on.

Blu-ray has better studio support. Sony pictures is obviously Blu-Ray exclusive. The only studio that is exclusive to HD-DVD is Universal. Everything else is neutral.

PS3 will make 2 million Blu-Ray users seemingly overnight. When that happens, they will buy Blu-Ray media. HD-DVD's fate relies on the failure of PS3, and must strike first with a budget player within the next fiscal year. This is the only way to really trump Sony's technically superior format.

2 Million units is not much. The PS3 will easily sell out this november, primarily as a game system, not so much as a Blu-ray player. The magic of the PS3 is that lowtech gamers with SDTVs that buy PS3 will be tempted to try BLu-Ray movies unknowing the diffrence, other than Blu-Ray is suposedly better than DVD Tha's why PS3 is an important Trojan Horse for Blu-ray media. One that should not be ignored.

November of 2007, there will be a winner to the format war.

[ProvenFlipper]

There have been reports that DL yields are now at about 80% and that production on the Kingdom of Heaven is going to start on Sept. 25th. So yes DL is going to be out this year. Sony has already said they will release at least 2 titles that are DL this year, and Disney has released Japanese specs claiming DL discs.