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[sonycowboy]

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050614/japan_sanyo_dvd.html?.v=1

Report: Sanyo Electric Joins Blu-Ray Group

Tuesday June 14, 8:31 am ET

Report: Japan's Sanyo Electric Joins Sony-Led Blu-Ray Disc Group, Keeps Ties to HD-DVD Bloc

 

[Nerevar]

ALL I WANT IS ONE FORMAT YOU FUCKERS! MAKE UP YOUR GODDAMN MINDS!


/rant

 

[kaching]

Everyone HAS made up their minds. They wanna fight.

 

[Redbeard]

How hard would it be to make one player that could read both discs?

 

[ThongyDonk]

How hard would it be to make one player that could read both discs?

very

 

[Ponn]

How hard would it be to make one player that could read both discs?

Probably can be done, but will be expensive condsidering they will also want to include DVD support. Plus you still have the format war itself, which format will you buy the movie on? Overall this fighting will hurt the movement unless they combine or there is a clear and quick winner. You notice though it starting, companies sliding over or trying to get ties too both formats. I for sure thought Xbox 360 would go with a HD-DVD drive and that would have helped that camp. but they didn't and now they are pretty screwed. The only thing they can do at this point is getting the rental chains like Netflix and Blockbuster on their sides. If they lose their support its all over.

 

[ThongyDonk]

And so Betamax makes a comeback and the Rev's format is revealed!!

 

[OmniGamer]

Ahem

Sanyo plans to make a key part of the machines that reads the discs for both formats -- apparently hedging its bet, as the two groups pour resources into a technology that is expected to revolutionize Hollywood movies and consumer electronics.

 

[sonycowboy]

Ahem

Thus the title. :|

 

[OmniGamer]

Thus the title. :|

I know, I was referring to RedBeard's post asking how hard would it be to make a player that plays both formats

 

[Apenheul]

Sanyo = Sony afaik, so I'm not surprised

 

[ThirdEye]

Sanyo = Sony afaik, so I'm not surprised

Huh?

 

[Kleegamefan]

Aiwa is a Sony subsidiary, not Sanyo....


HD-DVD and BRD have more similarities than differences so making one format would not be that hard

Blue Laser wavelength
Advanced Sound and Video Codecs
Physical size


are both the same on BRD and HD-DVD, so a single format that can read all disks is far from impossible.....here are the differences, IIRC:

Numerical Aperture(BRD=0.85/HD-DVD=0.65)

Minimum Pit length(HD-DVD is 204nm and BRD is 160nm for Prodata disks[23.3GB/46.6GB] or 140nm for 25 and 50GB BRDs, or 138nm for 27 and 54GB BRDs)

Track Pitch (0.32 micron for BRD and 0.40 micron for HD-DVD)

Read Power (0.35mW for BRD and 0.50mW for HD-DVD)

Physical Data layer (0.1mm for BRD and 0.6mm for HD-DVD

Other differences include the fact BRD doesn't have to rotate as fast as HD-DVDs to reach the specified 36mb/sec data rate...in fact, a BRD rotating @ 10K RPM would be a 12X drive but an HD-DVD rotating at 10K RPM would only be a 9X drive....this is a by-product of the Numerical Apeture of each format and yet another performance advantage of Blu-ray...

They also have different software layers (BRD runs a java-based OS while HD-DVD doesnt) but for all these diffrences, a unified format is more a political challange than an engineering one.....this fact has been admitted by architechs of each format for a number of years...

 

[RuGalz]

Isn't the difference really comes down to MS supplying software stuff for HD-DVD and Sony is using Linux+Java? Or did I get the HD-DVD side wrong.

 

[Zaptruder]

Isn't the difference really comes down to MS supplying software stuff for HD-DVD and Sony is using Linux+Java? Or did I get the HD-DVD side wrong.

WMV9 (MS's HD format) is used by both BRD and HDDVD.

 

[Apenheul]

Aiwa is a Sony subsidiary, not Sanyo....

Hmm, I guess I was misinformed then.

 

[RuGalz]

WMV9 (MS's HD format) is used by both BRD and HDDVD.

Wasn't MS providing authoring software for HD-DVD or something?

 

[sonycowboy]

Wasn't MS providing authoring software for HD-DVD or something?

They are the provider for the software that HD-DVD would use for the players / recorders. It's an extension of their set-top box software that is used by many digital cable boxes and MSNTV.

They do not provide authoring software, afaik, but there are a ton of software companies out there that do.

 

[RuGalz]

Ah ok. That's still pretty big for MS to get HD-DVD format through than.

 

[TKM]

And so Betamax makes a comeback and the Rev's format is revealed!!

The Betamax analogy is so tired. The major players behind VHS included Matsushita/JVC, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, and Sharp. All of them are onboard for Blu-Ray. Sony was basically alone with Beta.

 

[brocke]

Theoretically, if Sony won the format war with Blueray, couldn't they choose not to let microsoft use blueray in a future xbox or the xbox 360?

 

[Kleegamefan]

Might be a little complicated for Sony to play hardball on that level because BRD uses licensed VC-1 A/V codec (Microsoft technology) and as we all (should) know, BRD is a CONSORTIUM of many, many companies, not just Sony...

Also, it would be in all the BRD members best intrest (including Sony) to license BRD as much as possible, not to mention Sony and Microsoft are strategic partners in many non-gaming ventures....

Plus it would be dumb to do that