Ask questions to Blu-ray BD-J insider "Talkstr8t"

[desmond]

Bandwidth goes up by 20% for 1080p if avc is used.

[tvted]

Originally Posted by newt07

Broadcasters are heading toward 1080p60, but afaik BD-R and BD-RE does not support 1080p60. Will the BDA add 1080p60 support, and if so when do you think they'll do it?

Not where I work. There are enough issues with "i".

ted

[PaulGo]

Whatever the final result is 1080p/60 still will take it out of the boundaries of a broadcast digital signal and the current ATSC standard does not support this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATSC_Standards

[tvted]

Originally Posted by Bricktop

Is 1080p60 even part of the ATSC standard? I thought it was not.

Its not unless at 720P
See page 24 of http://www.atsc.org/standards/a_54a_with_corr_1.pdf

ted

[DaViD Boulet]

no.

But that hasn't stopped 1080p 60 from being added to input-compatibility on televisions or 1080p60 output being added to BD players.

ATSC never could break out of the mindset of interlaced and was too focused on recording limitations of the day and of CRT display technology and didn't really get that there would be displays and systems capable of handling 1080p60 at the consumer level. However, the industry (thankfully) has moved beyond that and embraced 1080p.

[Talkstr8t]

Originally Posted by glenn22

I'm guessing you can't get any more specific on the details for Sleeping Beauty?

I haven't seen the details I was told by a Disney person posted elsewhere, so I have to assume they are not yet public. Suffice it to say those who have recently visited a Disney theme park will be very pleased.

Also, in a previous post you mentioned that a large part of the start up time for a blu-ray movie is for a player benchmark to take place. I'm curious as to why that has to be done. Does the menu/interactivity change based on the player speed?

Some titles use less sophisticated animation and graphical effects on players which aren't able to support them. For instance one title (I forget which) uses a "sweeping spotlight" effect as you move focus to different menu options on those players which can support it, but on a couple of less-powerful players the spotlight jumps from one spot to the next rather than smoothly sweeping.

- Talk

[Talkstr8t]

Originally Posted by Icemage

With the breach in security with AACS by itself, is there any chance that the BDA could opt to make AACS security an option rather than a requirement on pressed discs?

Unless something has happened very recently which I'm unaware of, AACS was designed to handle the sorts of compromises seen so far. No one considers AACS "broken" as CSS was. I see no short-term movement to make AACS optional (there seems to be a fairly clear split between studios and CE vendors on this issue, but the studios have the most to lose, so their viewpoint is generally respected on the matter). Work continues to find a way to lower the costs of AACS encryption.

[Talkstr8t]

Originally Posted by newt07

Broadcasters are heading toward 1080p60, but afaik BD-R and BD-RE does not support 1080p60. Will the BDA add 1080p60 support, and if so when do you think they'll do it?

This is probably a better question for paidgeek. I know of nothing which says 1080p60 isn't supported on BD-R/RE, but I haven't looked closely at that part of the spec.

[Icemage]

Originally Posted by Talkstr8t

Unless something has happened very recently which I'm unaware of, AACS was designed to handle the sorts of compromises seen so far. No one considers AACS "broken" as CSS was. I see no short-term movement to make AACS optional (there seems to be a fairly clear split between studios and CE vendors on this issue, but the studios have the most to lose, so their viewpoint is generally respected on the matter). Work continues to find a way to lower the costs of AACS encryption.

Wait... by this I'm getting the impression that the CE manufacturers want it to be optional and the studios want it to be required - which makes no sense?

What I'm talking about is just the requirement for AACS to be present on pressed discs, not the requirement that player hardware respect AACS if present.

I understand the need to make AACS encryption encoding required on the hardware, since all hardware needs to respect it if it's used; I'm just wondering why studios and other content providers should be required to use it on the pressed discs. For instance, if someone wants to publish a free-to-be-distributed instructional video on a Blu-ray disc, why would they want or care about AACS?

Maybe a CE wants to produce a promotional disc to ship with their players to show off what the player can do - wouldn't they be bound by the same AACS requirement, and to what purpose would this serve?

[FourToedStatue]

Hey Talk you may be the worng guy to ask but do you think we'll see more catalog titles from now until April? I see a lot of day and dates announced but catalogs seem to be few and far between.

[MrBogey]

Talk:

There's been a lot of speculation and FUD thrown around on BD-J and BD+. For a lot of the newer discs there's been errors with playing them on some older players like the Samsung. Are these problems in any way related to changes in BD+, updates to BD-J, or just general errors in ecoding for compatibility?

I'd like to get an answer so there can't be any weaseling by hacks who promote BD+ as inheritly flawed.

[kibbled_bits]

Talkstr8t

Microsoft is going to no doubt slip their little HDi into Blu-ray spec. We are against this they are in the media now saying that they are talking with Blu-ray. BDJ is the way to go IMHO leave Microsoft in the dust.

[newt07]

I seriously doubt the BDA is going to add HDi to the specs. It's a weak attempt to derail blu-ray. We already have profile 1, 1.1, and 2. People will not be happy with another profile.

[DaViD Boulet]

I seriously doubt the BDA is going to add HDi to the specs. It's a weak attempt to derail blu-ray. We already have profile 1, 1.1, and 2. People will not be happy with another profile.

it could never be added now.

HDi is used for menu systems, which are essential to proper disc play. All current BD players need to be able to access the menu systems of future software... it can't be optional.

This is different from profile 1.1 and 2.0 discs which only risk early-adoptors being able to access certain special feature content.

[kibbled_bits]

Good the thought of HDi (Microcrap) makes me want to puke. I'd rather have systems untainted from Microsoft.

[Talkstr8t]

Originally Posted by Icemage

Wait... by this I'm getting the impression that the CE manufacturers want it to be optional and the studios want it to be required - which makes no sense?

What I'm talking about is just the requirement for AACS to be present on pressed discs, not the requirement that player hardware respect AACS if present.

I understand the need to make AACS encryption encoding required on the hardware, since all hardware needs to respect it if it's used; I'm just wondering why studios and other content providers should be required to use it on the pressed discs. For instance, if someone wants to publish a free-to-be-distributed instructional video on a Blu-ray disc, why would they want or care about AACS?

By making AACS mandatory on all pressed discs it allows the spec to require that players may not play pressed discs without AACS. This means pirate factories can't crank out movies unless they put AACS on them, in which case there's an authentication trail which may help track down the source of the stolen material.

[Talkstr8t]

Originally Posted by JackBauer24

Hey Talk you may be the worng guy to ask but do you think we'll see more catalog titles from now until April? I see a lot of day and dates announced but catalogs seem to be few and far between.

Sorry, I have little visibility into studio release plans...

[Talkstr8t]

Originally Posted by MrBogey

There's been a lot of speculation and FUD thrown around on BD-J and BD+. For a lot of the newer discs there's been errors with playing them on some older players like the Samsung. Are these problems in any way related to changes in BD+, updates to BD-J, or just general errors in ecoding for compatibility?

I'd like to get an answer so there can't be any weaseling by hacks who promote BD+ as inheritly flawed.

Both formats have required firmware updates to support newer titles which may use parts of the spec which haven't undergone as much testing. I don't believe there's anything inherently flawed about BD+, it's just that it didn't show up until fairly recently so those players released long before BD+ was in use couldn't be tested as thoroughly. Steps have been put into place to help improve communication between the studios and the player manufacturers to help address incompatibilities as early as possible and to ensure any problem areas which are found are fed back into the specification and testing working groups so that the specification and/or the test discs can be updated as may be required.

- Talk

[Talkstr8t]

Originally Posted by kibbled_bits

Microsoft is going to no doubt slip their little HDi into Blu-ray spec. We are against this they are in the media now saying that they are talking with Blu-ray.

I see no practical possibility of HDi becoming part of the Blu-ray spec. It's very feasible to take the best concepts from HDi and support them as BD-J libraries, which would require no modifications of existing players and could be used by those studios who might want to.

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by DaViD Boulet

ATSC never could break out of the mindset of interlaced and was too focused on recording limitations of the day and of CRT display technology and didn't really get that there would be displays and systems capable of handling 1080p60 at the consumer level. However, the industry (thankfully) has moved beyond that and embraced 1080p.

For ATSC: 1920 x 1080/59.94/P would require double the bandwidth or double the compression ratio (or a mix of the two) of 1920 x 1080/59.94/I.

Another problem, most plants (even today) are still predominately NTSC (440 X 480/59.94/I) and requires they move between (splicer [commercial breaks, news, etc.]) 440 X 480/59.94 and 1920 x 1080/59.94