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

[WickyWoo]

Does this mean we will still be stuck purchasing a box supplied through the cableco, and not a general box we can purchase anywhere?

As far as I know, the push is for Cable Card and to eliminate the STB. Much cheaper to make and store

[john_nemesh]

Originally Posted by Talkstr8t

I think this would violate the spec, as in effect the player would be arbitrarily bypassing content which it is supposed to execute. The studios could certainly author their titles to support this sort of capability...

Disney's Invincible works just like that. Put in the disc, the movie starts playing. I can not remember if previews start first, but I do know the FBI warning is NOT bypassed. The disc never starts at the menu, instead, a pop up comes up as the movie starts that informs you to pull up the pop up menu if you need it. Great stuff! I wish more discs were like this!

[wostertag]

Talk,

Got my copy of Saw IV today, saw a star next to "Molog", and noticed under System Requirements:

"Requires Blu-ray Profile 2.0 or internet connected BD player for full access to features."

I went into it on my PS3 and got a "cannot find out server", so evidently it's not working yet (also the web site still says coming soon). Is this a BD Live title? And if so, do you have any idea when this feature might be available?

[Ben]

Originally Posted by wostertag

Talk,

Got my copy of Saw IV today, saw a star next to "Molog", and noticed under System Requirements:

"Requires Blu-ray Profile 2.0 or internet connected BD player for full access to features."

I went into it on my PS3 and got a "cannot find out server", so evidently it's not working yet (also the web site still says coming soon). Is this a BD Live title? And if so, do you have any idea when this feature might be available?

It is definitely a profile 2.0 title. It was part of Lionsgate's BD Live presentation at CES, as a matter of fact.

[wostertag]

Originally Posted by Ben

It is definitely a profile 2.0 title. It was part of Lionsgate's BD Live presentation at CES, as a matter of fact.

Thanks Ben. Probably won't be too long before they get it going then

[Talkstr8t]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

Does this mean we will still be stuck purchasing a box supplied through the cableco, and not a general box we can purchase anywhere?

I expect you'll be able to purchase standalone added-value boxes, like a DVR or perhaps Blu-ray player with tru2way support. I just don't expect to see much in the way of standalone standard cable boxes, as most people would rather lease than buy.

[Talkstr8t]

Originally Posted by glenn22

I am wondering if there is anything truly revolutionary in the works for BD-J. So far we've seen fancy menus and the beginnings of PiP. We've also heard bits a pieces of what BD-Live will bring us, but I've yet to hear about anything that will really get "DVD is good enough" folks excited about Blu-ray.

I think we'll see steady progress with increasingly compelling content. I don't know of any "knock your socks off" application which would be universally acclaimed, but Disney has ambitious plans for Sleeping Beauty which will be of great interest to their fanbase; Lionsgate continues to push the envelope on new features, and Fox and Sony have strong roadmaps as well. But I don't think BD Live by itself is going to convince many buyers who don't otherwise have an interest in the added A/V quality Blu-ray offers over legacy DVD.

[Talkstr8t]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

As far as I know, the push is for Cable Card and to eliminate the STB. Much cheaper to make and store

Cablecard only handle the security portion of the box; you still need a box (or TV) to plug it into!

[Talkstr8t]

Originally Posted by Neo65

Is there a more accurate (more recent) update to the list of BDA members including general and contributor members than this here :

http://www.blu-raydisc.com/general_i...009/Index.html

That list looks pretty current to me. Is there someone you're looking for who isn't on there?

[Talkstr8t]

Originally Posted by wostertag

Got my copy of Saw IV today, saw a star next to "Molog", and noticed under System Requirements:

"Requires Blu-ray Profile 2.0 or internet connected BD player for full access to features."

I went into it on my PS3 and got a "cannot find out server", so evidently it's not working yet (also the web site still says coming soon). Is this a BD Live title? And if so, do you have any idea when this feature might be available?

It is a BD Live title. Lionsgate's wording is unfortunate, however; a BD player which has network access has to be fully-compliant with Profile 2.0 (BD Live). There is no "halfway" where titles can have network connectivity without compliance. The players which do have network ports (PS3, some Samsungs, Pioneer) can't access the network from a BD title unless/until they are updated to full BD Live compliance. The PS3 hasn't yet received such an update. Once the update is out the features on Saw IV should work.

[wostertag]

Originally Posted by Talkstr8t

It is a BD Live title. Lionsgate's wording is unfortunate, however; a BD player which has network access has to be fully-compliant with Profile 2.0 (BD Live). There is no "halfway" where titles can have network connectivity without compliance. The players which do have network ports (PS3, some Samsungs, Pioneer) can't access the network from a BD title unless/until they are updated to full BD Live compliance. The PS3 hasn't yet received such an update. Once the update is out the features on Saw IV should work.

Yeah - the wording is what made me give it a try. I am patiently waiting for the update

[glenn22]

Originally Posted by Talkstr8t

I think we'll see steady progress with increasingly compelling content. I don't know of any "knock your socks off" application which would be universally acclaimed, but Disney has ambitious plans for Sleeping Beauty which will be of great interest to their fanbase; Lionsgate continues to push the envelope on new features, and Fox and Sony have strong roadmaps as well. But I don't think BD Live by itself is going to convince many buyers who don't otherwise have an interest in the added A/V quality Blu-ray offers over legacy DVD.

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

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? I know that players with different profile will enable/disable certain options (profile 1.0 vs. profile 1.1 vs profile 2.0), but why a benchmark?

[Icemage]

Talk,

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? This would be a friendly move to help content providers who don't particularly care about piracy, and increase the appeal of Blu-ray for smaller providers, who would basically be paying a tax for something which doesn't help them much without also using BD+ - and who may not even be interested in protecting their content.

[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?

[DaViD Boulet]

agreed.

The bandwidth/bit-rate needed to capture 1080p60 over 1080p24 and 1080p 30 is manageable since there's so much temporal redundancy. 1080p60 should have been part of the BD spec from the start. I needs to be added ASAP IMO, as future content will be native 1080p60 source and need to be "down sampled" to 1080p24 or 1080p60 or (worse) 1080i60 for BD: who wants that?

[PaulGo]

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?

They may have 1080p cameras but they cannot broadcast 1080p 60fps their is not enough bandwidth allocated for this.

[DaViD Boulet]

It's already been covered that the additional bandwith for 1080p60 versus 1080i60 is actually quite small because of the increased efficiency of compression frames with such similar temporal information.

Bandwith is not a problem.

[WickyWoo]

Yeah, it is

Because you're sending 1080i 30fps right now. Sending 1080p60 is a huge huge difference

[DaViD Boulet]

Not it's not.

You're not getting it. Doubling the frame-rate does NOT DOUBLE the bandwidth needed. A compressed signal behaves differently as you increase frame-rate, because there's so much redundancy between the content of each frame: the closer the frames are together in real-time, the less and less data you need to transparently compress it.

By the way, the same "non linear" bandwidth requirements applies to increasing resolution as well.

in other words, a picture with twice the pixles doesn't require twice the bandwidth. The higher you go in resolution, the less and less additional bandwith you need for each proprtional increase.

[Bricktop]

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