Pioneer shows off 16-layer 400GB Blu-ray Disc, affirms compatibility with current players

[Marquoz]

Originally Posted by supersix4

hmm I bet digital download people are waiting to hear how dd's will match this lmao




awsome news!

They will give them access to download entire archive at once buttons.

[LynxFX]

All that space is nice, but what is the maximum bitrate? Would it still be at 48Mbits? If so then all that space is only good for putting more video/data on the disc instead of improving the quality i.e. less compression. 100gig and 200gig discs were being tested before Blu-ray hit the streets yet 2 1/2 years later those are still nowhere to be found. I doubt we'll see these 400gig discs anywhere but the lab or as a niche expensive backup option.

[supersix4]

Originally Posted by Marquoz

They will give them access to download entire archive at once buttons.

lol zing!

[Petra_Kalbrain]

Originally Posted by LynxFX

All that space is nice, but what is the maximum bitrate? Would it still be at 48Mbits? If so then all that space is only good for putting more video/data on the disc instead of improving the quality i.e. less compression. 100gig and 200gig discs were being tested before Blu-ray hit the streets yet 2 1/2 years later those are still nowhere to be found. I doubt we'll see these 400gig discs anywhere but the lab or as a niche expensive backup option.

That's the major point of this breakthrough. More great quality content on fewer discs. The format is maxed out at its current bitrate capactiy of 56Mbps (or is it 54Mbps? I can't remember exactly). Like people have said before. If they release larger quantity content on one disc, I'd be willing to pay a bit more for the convenience. I am so very quickly running out of room for my growing collection (800+ and going north!!!).

[Marquoz]

Originally Posted by Petra_Kalbrain

That's the major point of this breakthrough. More great quality content on fewer discs. The format is maxed out at its current bitrate capactiy of 56Mbps (or is it 54Mbps? I can't remember exactly). Like people have said before. If they release larger quantity content on one disc, I'd be willing to pay a bit more for the convenience. I am so very quickly running out of room for my growing collection (800+ and going north!!!).

I would be a bit more leery of purchasing single disks. Imagine having the entire series of say X-Files on one disk, what happens when that one gets damaged. You have to re-purchase the entire thing. Having it spanned across a few disks makes it a little less likely you will lose the entire series in one fell swoop.

[Ascended_Saiyan]

Originally Posted by Marquoz

I would be a bit more leery of purchasing single disks. Imagine having the entire series of say X-Files on one disk, what happens when that one gets damaged. You have to re-purchase the entire thing. Having it spanned across a few disks makes it a little less likely you will lose the entire series in one fell swoop.

It would STILL be incomplete and would force you to rebuy the entire series (assuming it's a 1 season series since I'm pretty sure NO studio would put multiple seasons on one disc).

In other words, there would only be higher quality (higher bitrate) seasons and not an entire series on a disc. With that being said, there is really no difference between having a disc being damaged (tough to do with a BD) from a complete season and having a disc containing the entire season sustaining damage...to a collector.

[caliminius]

Originally Posted by xtop

400gb isnt even enough for uncompressed tho!

Warner is too cheap to use a 400GB Blu-Ray anyhow. With how cheap Warner seems at times, I could see them spreading each of the LOTR movies over 6 BR-25 discs.

[AlexKx]

This is a true and concerning fact...what if you have one of these discs scratched or ruined in some way? THEN what, huh? Of course I do understand that Blu-Ray discs are supposedly far more stronger with its so called coated protection where you could supposedly take a screw driver to it and it would not scratch. But never say never. Some people also pointed out and I remember this that back in the 1980's it was thought that c.d.s were not scratchable at least to some degree. I suppose there was SOME truth to that in comparison to vinyl records. Hence why I do NOT play my vinyl records AT ALL! Lol!

With that said I can't STAND hearing people ask what the point of this is when there are endless movie serieses (I swear I've never learned how to spell or say that word) and t.v. shows as well as all the bonus features that go on for hours and hours and hours. I for one would like to know how and why I have been so mislead by people here the last couple of years saying that this was NOT what Blu-Ray was for when in fact since the year 2000 I have known that it was (aside from high definition).

[joelslaw]

I tried to start a new thread with this (it's a tad off topic) but because I'm a new member I couldn't, so I hope you don't mind if I post it in this thread:

That article got me thinking about how much less compression you could use, and in fact, would you even need it?

Well according to this calculator, yes. Uncompressed 1080p25 would get to big to fast. You couldn't fit a whole movie.

However, I then started wondering if there are lossless video codecs. Turns out there are. One I looked into, "MSU Lossless Video Codec", claims a compression ratio of anywhere from 3 to 9 on some video (look at the codec comparison in that link).

Obviously you couldn't use that codec on a BD because it is not in the spec, but could a lossless version of H264, or VC-1 be made, that would be compatible with BD?

If so, you could have a BD with lossless video and audio!!! Goodbye compression artifacts!

What do you guys think? You think we'll ever see anything like this?

[Uniquely]

Originally Posted by supersix4

hmm I bet digital download people are waiting to hear how dd's will match this lmao

It's called streaming. File size is not a consideration at all for streaming. Only the bitrate. I can already get 720P video that looks every bit as good as anything I can watch on DirecTV, streamed to my tv with about a 15 second buffer time. And I just have a crappy 6MB DSL connection. It won't take much improvement in technology before we get 1080P with decent audio.

[sAvAgE69]

I did mention this before in this thread. Not just 3 weeks ago with a question of what players are going to be able to read these newer discs?

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=71870

Seems to have been shrugged off

[Midnightsailor]

Originally Posted by caliminius

Warner is too cheap to use a 400GB Blu-Ray anyhow. With how cheap Warner seems at times, I could see them spreading each of the LOTR movies over 6 BR-25 discs.

I imagine LOTR on Blu-ray will be perfect.

[Bobby Henderson]

A 16-layer 400GB disc might be good for demo purposes, but I am very skeptical such discs could be produced on a massive scale without lots of replication problems.

DVD-18 and DVD-14 were rarely used due to replication issues, not to mention a much higher cost. HD-DVD couldn't get its 3-layer 51GB disc off the ground due to similar problems.

I think we'll be lucky if Blu-ray discs can be mass produced with more than 2 data layers on a reliable basis. If I'm feeling optimistic, a 4-layer 100GB could be a reality with packaged movie discs within a couple years. But I'm not going to bet on it.

Originally Posted by robinandtami

It's called streaming. File size is not a consideration at all for streaming. Only the bitrate.

The bit rate isn't for squat. The 720p slop sold by iTunes and others are garbage. It isn't HD. And saying it looks as good as DirecTV isn't saying much. I sure won't pay $6 for a 24 hour rental with that kind of low quality. Plain garbage.

Blu-ray delivers the highest image quality of any HD format people can watch in their homes. A big part of that is the bit rate. It runs much higher on a BD than it does over some puny Internet pipe.

Those Internet pipes aren't going to get much faster at all for years to come. Instead, the telcos are putting up toll gates on bandwidth instead.

[supersix4]

Originally Posted by robinandtami

It's called streaming. File size is not a consideration at all for streaming. Only the bitrate. I can already get 720P video that looks every bit as good as anything I can watch on DirecTV, streamed to my tv with about a 15 second buffer time. And I just have a crappy 6MB DSL connection. It won't take much improvement in technology before we get 1080P with decent audio.

well when you have to download the movies like itunes, good luck with that.

*nobody was talking about streaming, talking about digital downloads

[BluRayExplosion]

I don't think I've ever heard the phrases 6 Megabits per second and crappy in the same sentence before. Lucky bastard.

Anyway, I was thinking the other day that BD might get overtaken by solid state chips pretty soon (price of flash memory is PLUMMETING), but with these new developments it might be an interesting fight. Capacity vs. speed.

[Anthony P]

DVD-18 and DVD-14 were rarely used due to replication issues, not to mention a much higher cost. HD-DVD couldn't get its 3-layer 51GB disc off the ground due to similar problems.

don't forget that no one likes flippers, I have a few DVD-18 and they are just annoying, you need to read the fine print to decide the side you want, they scratch more easily, no safe side...

As for 51, that was a joke, it was never meant to be added, at first they tried 45 and when the answer was 50 is still bigger they tried to use 51 will be introduced. On the other hand the combos where used and they have 4 layers.

Note: I am not convinced we will have more then 2 layers just disagree with the points you made

[Blu Titan]

Originally Posted by WriteSimply

Your co-worker better not be a scientist or an engineer.

The BDA could use these 400/500GB discs and increase the read bandwidth so that it can be used with BD3D for true 1080p video.


fuad

We work in accounting...

[Bobby Henderson]

Originally Posted by BluRayExplosion

Anyway, I was thinking the other day that BD might get overtaken by solid state chips pretty soon (price of flash memory is PLUMMETING), but with these new developments it might be an interesting fight. Capacity vs. speed.

Flash memory is never going to get to the low price levels in cost per GB as optical discs. It's always going to be cheaper to replicate discs on a massive scale than sell movies stored on flash based media.

[chriharr]

Originally Posted by Leopold BUTTERS

uncompressed video? I am confused.

well it's a digital format so naturally there is compression somewhere.

DVD encodes from 1996 till this day have been transcoded from a 1080p source capture of the original film print, modern films are now captured from film in 4 & 8 k resolutions and encoded into 1080p resolution for Blu-ray, the sky is the limit for resolution, as for audio, well blu-ray gets the same or better treatment as the cinema, it can't get much better for sound, but picture will always improve as time goes on.

Originally Posted by tron3

There is something to be said about not putting all your eggs in one basket. That many layer changes are sure to create play back issues. Better get cracking on the firmware, people.

I could imagine even medium scratches on a BD could render some content redundant.

the less layers the better, the bigger something gets, the more technical faults can occur.

it can be said about anything not just Electrical Appliances

[chriharr]

Originally Posted by caliminius

Warner is too cheap to use a 400GB Blu-Ray anyhow. With how cheap Warner seems at times, I could see them spreading each of the LOTR movies over 6 BR-25 discs.

this is just biased nonsense Warner does not do this with every release and does not need to make every blu-ray dual layered, different movies rely on different encoding bit rates, it depends on a number of things, it's all optimized for a quality release at the end of the day.

20th Century Fox has released just as many movies on BD-25 discs as Warner and no one knit picks with them.

Originally Posted by joelslaw

I tried to start a new thread with this (it's a tad off topic) but because I'm a new member I couldn't, so I hope you don't mind if I post it in this thread:

That article got me thinking about how much less compression you could use, and in fact, would you even need it?

Well according to this calculator, yes. Uncompressed 1080p25 would get to big to fast. You couldn't fit a whole movie.

However, I then started wondering if there are lossless video codecs. Turns out there are. One I looked into, "MSU Lossless Video Codec", claims a compression ratio of anywhere from 3 to 9 on some video (look at the codec comparison in that link).

Obviously you couldn't use that codec on a BD because it is not in the spec, but could a lossless version of H264, or VC-1 be made, that would be compatible with BD?

If so, you could have a BD with lossless video and audio!!! Goodbye compression artifacts!

What do you guys think? You think we'll ever see anything like this?

I don't think this would ever happen for a consumer product, you see having an uncompressed video file would result in a movie being a few Terabytes etc. that kind of storage is too expensive and unnecessary for a consumer product, if it was introduced the cinema would collapse as the home entertainment business can out do it in quality and experience.