few questions on blu-ray

[Blu-Wave]

Talking of capacity at 1080p24, using FRExt, lossy DD/DTS 5.1 and experts to hand-tune the (variable) bitrate encoding on BD-ROMs (like Microsoft have done with their online 702p24 demos), 50GB should be good for almost 12 hours for pretty reasonable quality 1080p24 viideo combined with pretty poor quality lossy 5.1 sound (either dire, dire or dire to be sure (to be sure). If we go for quality instead, a 50GB disc should be good for around 4 hours of good quality 1080p24 video and lossless DSD 22.2. :shock:

Of course, this is only 1080p24. If we increase the temporal resolution to, say, 96 or 120Hz and the amplitude resolution to 15 bits per colour (ok, 16 if you're may keen on binary), using suitable compression technology a 50GB disc could only hold around 2 hours of 3/16/1080p120 video with lossless DSD 14.2 audio - so that 100GB disc might come in handy after all ... :?

Coincidently, the High Dynamic Range [HDR] display offers a dynamic range of around 60,000:1 - or about 16 bits (remember that CD has a maximum dynamic range, ignoring any noise-shaping and interpolation issues, of 65536:1). Of course, if we start talking about Hexachrome, Octachrome or similar technology, 100GB might seem just a little tiny - and we'll not mention UHDV ...

HDR might potentially offer great quality, but, being self-illuminating, it uses similar amounts of power to a standard LCD panel ('though less than a PDP). Given enough ambient light, a well-designed reflective display - such as reflective LCD or electronic ink - would use much less power than LCDs, OLEDs [LEPs], SEDs [FEDs], CRTs or PDPs - clearly a major plus point from the green point of view ... 8)